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N OLD MAID’S LOVE 


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NEW YORK 

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1891 


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TO 

REGINALD STANLEY FABER 

THE AUTHOR OFFERS THE DEDICATION OF , 

THIS BOOK 

AS A RECOGNITION OF KINDNESS IN THE PAST , 
AND A PLEA FOR FUTURE FRIENDSHIP 






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OONTEISTTS 


CHAP. PAGB 

I. THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM 7 

II. AUNT AND NEPHEW ; 11 

HI. IN HIS TEENS 17 

IV. AND OUT OP THEM 19 

V. KNIGHT-ERRANT 21 

VI. ON HOSPITABLE THOUGHTS INTENT 26 

VII. PARSON JAKOB 29 

VIII. FIRST APPEARANCE OP TANTE CRCESUS 32 

IX. WHO COOKS A PRETTY KETTLE OP PISH 38 

' X. PUNCTUALITY AND THE PARAGON 44 

XI. GRAPES, SOUR AND SWEET 50 

XII. DOROTHY ASKS A QUESTION AND RECEIVES AN ANSWER . 55 

XIII. A STORM IN AN EGG-CUP 65 

XrV. UN ABBf A MARIER 72 

XV. THE BEAUTY OP DANGER 82 

XVI. THE DANGER OP BEAUTY 89 

XVII. suzanna’s victories . . . ' 95 

XVIII. THE PURSUIT OP VICE 98 

XIX. ARNOUT’S portmanteau REMAINS UNPACKED 106 

XX. REJECTED 112 

XXI. “carmen” 117 

XXII. suzanna’s ordeal 128 

XXIII. AFTERWARDS 139 

XXIV THE DOMINO’S ADVICE 151 

XXV, A DIM, RELIGIOUS LIGHT 165 

XXVI. A DAUGHTER OP EVE 172 

XXVII. MEVROUW BARSSELIUS GIVES A PARTY 180 

XXVIII. THE SUN IN HIS ZENITH 193 

XXIX. THE STRANGER PROM HOME 207 

XXX. THE MISTAKES AND MISHAPS OP KAREL DONSELAAR , . . 214 

XXXI. “you bore us, papa”. 224 

XXXII. GRACE POUR MOI 230 


G 


CONTENTS, 


CHAP. ^ PAGE 

XXXIII, MISS DONSEIiAAR HAS NO TROUBLES 233 

XXXIV. SUZANNA SPEAKS HER MIND 243 

XXXV. DOVER TELLS SUZANNA’S STORY 247 

XXXVI. MEVROUW BARSSELIUS GOES TO SEE A BABY 255 

XXXVII. THE HOUSE IN AUTEUIL 270 

XXXVIII. THE VICOMTE’S SCRUPLES 278 

XXXIX. THE WOMAN’S RENUNCIATION 288 

XL. AND THE MAN’S 299 

X LT. THE prodigal’s RETURN 308 

XLII. THE PATTED CALF 314 

XLIII. ARNOUT UNDERSTANDS 317 






AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM. 

It was on a golden summer evening — a long June sunset, 
soft and silent — that Mepliisto crept into the quiet old heart 
of Suzanna Varelkamp. 

She was sitting in the low veranda of her cottage on the 
Wyker Road, with her grey knitting in her hands. She always 
had that grey knitting in her hands. If it rested on her knees 
for one brief moment, her friends could teU you that some 
singularly difficult question — probably of abstfiuse theology, 
or else about the linen-basket or the preserves — ^was troubhng 
Suzanna’s mind. Suzanna was a woman of industrious repose. 
She loved her God and her store-cupboard. She did not, as a 
rule, love her neighbor over much — little unpleasantnesses in 
connection with the overhanging apples, or Suzanna’s darhng 
cat, were apt to intervene and stifle the seeds of dutifully nur- 
tured benevolence. Nor did she love herself to any excess of 
unrighteousness, knowing, with a perfervid knowledge, that 
she was altogether abominable and corrupt, and “ even as a 
beast before Thee,” from her mother’s womb upwards — a re- 
mote period. 

The gentle laburnum at her side was slowly gilding over in 
the sinking sunlight, fragile and drooping and a httle lack-a- 
daisical, very unlik e the natty old woman, bolt-upright in her 
basket-chair. Just across the road a knot of poplars quivered 
to the stfll air, and in the pale, far heaven, companies of swal- 
lows circled with rapid, aimless swoops. Nature was slowly — 
very, very slowly, tranquilly, dreamingly, deliciously, settling 


8 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


itself to sleep — silent already bnt for a blackbird shrilling ex- 
citedly through the jasmine-bushes by the porch. 

Another bird woke up at that moment, and cried out from 
Suzanna’s bedroom — ^through all the quiet httle house — ^that 
it was half -past seven. Then he went to sleep again for ex- 
actly half an hour, for, hke all man’s imitations of God’s works, 
he is too hideously logical to be artistic. And Mejirffrouw 
Varelkamp began to wonder why Betje did not bring out the 
“ tea-water,” for every evening the sun went down at another 
moment — Providence, being all-provident, was able to super- 
intend such irregularities — ^but every evening, at half-past 
seven to the minute, Mejuffrouw Varelkamp must have her 
‘‘ tea- water,” or the httle cosmos of her household an-ange- 
ments could not survive the shock. “ It is difScult enough 
for one woman to superintend one servant ! ” said Suzanna. 
“ It is possible, but it is aU-engrossing, and requires concentra- 
tion of power and of vriU. And, not being Providence, I can- 
not regulate disorder,” The “ regulation of disorder,” as she 
called it — the breaking away from straight hnes and simple 
addition — ^was one of Suzanna’s bugbears. And so Betje was 
efficiently superintended ; none but she knew how engrossingly. 
And, evening after evening, the cuckoo stepped over his thresh- 
old, and Betje out of her kitchen, so harmoniously, that you 
might ahnost have fancied they walked in step. 

Somebody was coming up the quiet road, a Dutch road, 
straight and tidy, avenue-hke, between its double border of 
majestic beeches, — somebody whose walk sounded unrythmic 
tlmough the stillness — two people evidently, and not walking 
in step, these two — one with a light, hght-hearted swing, the 
other with a melancholy thump, and a httle skip to make it 
good again. But their whistling, the sweet, low wliisthng of 
an old Reformed psalm-tune, was in better unison than their 
walking, though even here, perhaps, the softer voice seemed 
just a shade too low. Had there been all the falseness of a 
German band in that subdued music, Suzanna would not have 
detected it ; her heart — and that far more than her ear — ^recog- 
nized with tranquil contentment the drawn-out melody, calm 
and plaintive, and her bright eye brightened, for just one lit- 
tle, unnoticeable moment, at the accents of the clearer voice. 


THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM. 


9 


That sudden brightening would flash every now and then over 
a face hard and cold enough by nature ; nobody ever noticed 
it except Suzanna’s sister, the rich widow Barsselius, not Su- 
zanna herself, least of all the young scapegrace who was its 
only cause. 

Dutch psalm-singing leaves plenty of time for the singers to 
go to sleep and wake up again between each succeeding note. 
The whistlers came into sight before they had finished many 
lines. They stopped suddenly upon perceiving the old lady 
under the veranda, and both took off their hats. 

“ Doming,” said Suzanna, “ how can you countenance whis- 
tling the word of God ? ” 

The young man thus addressed looked up with a quiet 
twinkle in his eye. He had a pale face and a thoughtful smile 5 
he was slightly deformed, and it was he that walked lame. 

“ With pipe and with timbrel, Juflfrouw,” he answered gaily. 
“ Old Baas Vroom has just been telling me that he won’t give 
up smoking, in spite of the doctor, because he has read in his 
Bible how the people praised the Lord with their pipes.” 

Suzanna never smiled unless she approved of the joke. She 
reverenced the minister, and she patronized the young believer ; 
it was difficult sometimes properly to blend the two feelings. 
But at the bottom of her tough old heart, she thoroughly liked 
her nephew’s friend. “ He will make a capital pastor,” she said 
to herseff (unconsciously), “ when he has unlearned a little of 
his so-called morality and taken in good sound theology in- 
stead. Not the milk of the Word with Professor Wyfel’s un- 
filtered water, but strong meat with plenty of Old Testament 
sap.” 

“ Come in here,” she said severely, “ I want to talk to you 
about that Vrouw Wede. I told her this morning that she 
could not have any more needlework from the Society unless 
she sent her son to the catechising. She says the boy’s father 
won’t have him go, because it tires his head. And I warned 
her I should report her to the Domini.” Mejuffrouw Varel- 
kamp’s voice always di*opped into exactly the same tone of he- 
reditaiy reverence over that word. Come in, J akob, and you 
shall have a ^ cat’s tongue,’ * even though it isn’t Sunday.” 

* A kind of biscuit. 


10 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


Betje had brought out the tea-things meanwhile, triumph- 
antly, under cover of the minister’s presence, the s h i n ing 
copper peat stove and the costly httle Japanese tea-cups, not 
much larger than a thimble, on their lacquered tray. “ Take 
away the tea-stove, Betje,” said Suzanna. ‘‘ The peat smeUs.” 
She said so every now and then — once a week, perhaps — ^being 
fir ml y convinced of the truth of her assertion, and Betje, who 
never beheved her, and who never smelled anything under 
carbohc acid, whisked away the bright pail and kettle from 
beside her mistress’s chair and brought them back again im- 
altered. ‘^That is right, Betje,” said Mejuffrouw. “How 
often must I teU you that a stove which smells of peat is full 
proof in itself of an incompetent servant ? ” 

“ Humph,” said Betje. For even the very best of house- 
keepers have their httle fadings, and fancies, and fads. 

“ Come in, Jakob,” said Suzanna. “ Not you, Amout. You 
can go down to the village and fetch me a skein of my dark 
grey wool. The dark grey, mind, at twelve stivers. You 
know which.” 

“ You know which ! ” The young man had grown up with 
the dark grey wool and the hght grey wool and the blue wool 
for a border. Ten stivers, twelve stivers, fourteen stivers. He 
knew them better than his catechism, and he knew that very 
well too. 

He touched his hat shghtly — ^he was always courteous to his 
aunt, as who would not have been? — and he stroUed away 
down the green highway into the shadows and the soft, warm 
sunset, taking up, as he went, the old psahn-tune that had been 
on iis hps before. 

it was the melody of the fifty-first psahn. Suzanna had 
good cause to remember it in after years. 

And it was into this calm, green paradise of an old maid’s 
heart, a paradise of straight gravel-paths and clipped box-trees 
and neat dahlia beds, that soft Mephisto crept. 


AUNT AND NEPHEW. 


11 


CHAPTER IL 

AUNT AND NEPHEW. 

Arnout — or Arnold — Oostrum was twenty ; straight-limbed 
— not, thank God ! with that gnawing pain in the thigh like 
his friend Jakob te Bakel ; broad-chested and strong-hearted, 
or, at least, so he thought. A young fellow with a capital di- 
gestion, and a bright contentment with himself and all the 
world about him. Ready to please everybody — him self in- 
cluded — as much as lay in his power, and convinced that a 
good deal did lie in his power, as what young feUow of twenty 
is not ? A good digestion. Oh, mystic charm of the words 
to those who have lost their meaning ! Men speak of a proud 
stomach. They should speak also of a happy, a contented 
one. No wonder he carries his head high who can rely upon 
that lower organ. No pestilence can smite him by day, no 
poisonous heart-pang by night. The conscience seldom awakes 
till the stomach has gone to sleep. And our bowels of com- 
passion — ah well, some sad thoughts are best left unspoken, 
for fear of a world that too easily cries “ Fie ! ” 

Is life worth living? The question has been debated by 
many of the wisest through the ages ; and at last there came 
a great unknown philosopher, and he quietly laid the answer 
at the feet of that sage of sages. Punch. “ It depends,” uiid 
that great teacher, “ on the liver.” 

To Amout Oostrum life was very much worth living indeed. 
He had never felt another pain than toothache or a tin-ash- 
ing. Not that his aunt had ever struck him in her hfe. No, 
no; that would have seemed a “niit coelum” to the boy, 
whose punishments, insignificant enough in themselves, had 
been terrible because so rare. His masters, with whom he had 
more frequently come into conflict, had only treated him to 
that civilized torture of extra tasks wliich has completely re- 
placed corporal chastisement in Dutch schools; the blows 


12 


AN OLD JIAID’S LOVE. 


anci buffets, therefore, which he had received during his pas- 
sage through the world thus far were such as fall to the lot 
of each one of us, and are usually dealt us by our most fa- 
miliar friends. Early in life, some of his school-feUows had 
licked him, and he had licked many more. And nature had 
been very gracious to him, and had permitted him to swallow 
with impunity a larger number of unripe apples than can be 
safely stowed away by most other boys of his size. 

His very earliest recollections were of contentment and 
enjoyment — ^play, pleasure, and sugar-plums j a placid sea, 
with occasional storm-flashes ; a kind lady, who was always 
kind, and a kind gentleman who coidd sometimes be passion- 
ate ; and then the kind lady alone, kinder than ever, but often 
very sadj and then — 

Then the flrst bright flash in the haze, fixed in a clearness 
of unchangeable light, against a dark background. The low 
room, looking out into the garden, with the bunches of red 
flowers on the carpet, and himself, at five years old, in a black 
frock. He had been playing with the old soldier-doU that had 
lost its head, “ Napoleon,” and an old lady came in to see him. 
An old lady ! a female Methuselali, thought Arnout, though in 
reahty Suzanna Varelkamp was then barely five-and-forty ; 
but, if anything, it seemed to him as if she had grown younger 
since that duU autumn day when she had fii’st dawned upon 
his vision, prim, grey, and neat, in the silence of the house 
gi’own desolate. “ Your mother is in heaven, Amout,” she had 

said, by no means unkindly, “ and your father is in Ah, 

well ! God Almighty and the devil must settle that between 
them — it’s no business of yours or mine, thank the Lord — and 
you must come away with me. Don’t cry ! ” — this rather nerv- 
ously ; not that he was thinking of crying — “ it’s babyish to 
cry. I shall get you a new doU, and you mus*tn’t break its 
head. Good children never break their toys. I have all my 
own toys at home, done up in tissue-paper, that I played with 
when I was a little girl 5 and you sh^ see some of them, per- 
haps, when you are very good indeed.” A bold promise, that 
last one. She made it with some trepidation. She could have 
given no greater proof of her anxiety to please her little 
nephew. 


AUNT AND NEPHEW. 


13 


“ That must have been a very long time ago, said Arnout, 
with a child’s grave stress upon the word. The antiquity of 
toys had never been so clearly borne in upon his mind. But 
he hugged Napoleon tightly to his breast. He had no in- 
tention of giving up Napoleon. 

His aunt laughed. She could always enjoy a joke at her 
own expense ; and cheap every-day vanities were not a part of 
her nature. 

‘‘We shall get on very weU, I have no doubt,” she said after- 
wards to the child as they sat in the railway carriage. “ You 
are not accustomed to old ladies, and I am not accustomdd to 
little boys. But we shall manage. You must always be liter- 
ally obedient, and I shall always be absolutely just.” 

“Where do the cows sleep at night?” queried little 
Arnout. 

“ They lie down on the ground,” replied his aunt shortly. 
She had hoped that her words would impress him more. 

But at this answer Arnout burst out crying — much to the 
good Juffrouw’s dismay. She had seen children cry before, un- 
doubtedly, but she had never had to bear the responsibility of 
their tears, and, worst of all, had never been required to arrest 

them. She tried kind inquiry into the cause of his sorrow, and 

then, finding that unavailable, stern injunction to desist. She 
felt that she must be gentle, but, above all things, she must be 
just. Why not teU her what had made him unhappy ? The 
boy shook his tear-begrimed countenance and choked down the 
sobs. It was the first little tiff between guardian and ward. 
She feared that he would not be open with her. And, in the 
very first place, he must be open with her. That was the basis 
of aU intercourse between pedagogue and pupd. Her sys- 
tem — 

Arnout pressed his face against the window, and gasped, and 
gurgled, and clenched his httle black-gloved fists. He could 
not confess to his aunt that the servant-girl had said that his 
mamma was undergi’ound, and that he dreaded that perhaps a 
great fat cow would lie down on her at night, and that she 
might not like it. He could not tell her that. 

“ And if yom* mother, who is in heaven, saw you,” said Su- 
zanua Varelkamp softly, “ she would like you to teU me why 


14 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


you are unhappy. And she would like you to respect me, and 
to — to love me, as a child should those that are set above him, 
and that are wiser than he is, and willing and able to instmct 
liim.” 

That was a compromise with her system, an improvement 
on her system, and, unconsciously, she obtained her end. The 
child did not know where heaven was, but it was recognizedly 
a pleasant place, and he felt very fi-ightened of cows. There 
coidd be no cows in heaven. 

He tm-ned round from the candage-window. With one 
hand he clutched Napoleon, and with the other he plucked at 
his aunt’s stiff shawl. 

“ I wiU love you, Tante Suze,” he said. And he did. 

But there ai’e many kinds of love, and it is not always easy 
to hit on the right khid towards a particular person. A good 
deal of affection is squandered or misapplied in that way, and 
one often thinks we should be surprised to discover how well 
we could supply each other’s wants, it only we learned to un- 
derstand them better. 

Ai-nout began by being afraid of his aunt, and anxious to 
appease her. He seemed to have an idea that, like most 
heathen deities, her duty was to make things unpleasant for 
aU around her, and that, in all estimations of her character, 
this her unavoidable vocation must be taken into account. 
His mother’s object in life had been to make herself amiable. 
That, emphatically, was not his aunt’s. Hers was rather to 
make herself, and everybody else, better than nature had in- 
tended them to be. And, as he grew older, Arnout had sense 
enough soon to perceive that Suzanna prefen’ed what she 
thought good to what she thought agreeable. With wide- 
opened eyes (of the soul) he discovered that her life was a 
struggle. Marvellous discovery ! She did not do what seemed 
most pleasant, but what she considered she ought to do. And 
she did not want him to act merely as she thought fitting, but 
to do what she beheved to be right, whether he — or she, for 
that matter — ^hked it or no. In spite of shps and inconsist- 
encies, the idea of duty stood out in the woman’s dealings with 
those around her. It forced itself into Arnout’s compre- 
hension and compelled Imn to respect his aunt’s sternness, even 


AUNT AND NEPHEW. 


15 


when he rebelled against it. If she was stem to him, she was 
almost sterner to herself. 

Not that he hked the sternness. Aimoiit most immistakably 
preferred doing what was pleasant. It was wonderful — it 
seemed to him — ^how often the good and the agreeable fall to- 
gether. Why always strive to separate them ? The benevo- 
lent and beneficent Power that rules over the affairs of men 
had arranged that they should combine. Aunt Suzanna was 
always pulling them apart. Things were right, with her, be- 
cause they were disagreeable. Women were bad because they 
were beautiful. Arnout had a weakness for a pretty face. 
During all the dull tenor of his childhood he had never known 
his aunt so angry as when she caught him kissing neighbor’s 
Comelie behind the hen-coop — neighbor’s Corn41ie, seven rosy 
summers to his ten, and lips that could not stop laughing even 
while they kissed him. If Suzanna had ever been near strik- 
ing her nephew, it was on that occasion. She dragged him 
roughly, almost fiercely, to his little room over the porch, and 
she locked him up with a chapter of Proverbs to leam, of 
which he did not understand one word. And a good thing too. 

“ You have more reason than most,” she said severely, “ to 
be afraid of the snares of the evil one. You have a tendency 
to give way to them. Beware of it in the days of your youth.” 

As he grew older he questioned her, half laughingly, half 
cm-iously, about his “ tendency ” to which she so often alluded. 
Wliy was he more wicked than most boys? Was he? 

“ God forbid ! ” Suzanna’s uncompromising justice compelled 
her to avow. 

“ Then why ? ” 

“Silence. You have a tendency. ‘Unto the third and 
fourth generation.’ And none of us are better than we need 
be.” 

“ But my mother was an angel,” persisted the boy. 

“ Yes, yom- mother was an angel,” snapped Suzanna smartly, 
“ and you are not.” 

Arnout was not satisfied, and he thought within himself 
that, the stronger was our tendency to unrighteousness, the less 
coidd he be blamed for indulging it just a little now and then. 

There were points, however, in wliich he equalled, nay, even 


16 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


distanced, liis aunt’s fine distinctions of black and grey. 
Everything that was mean, or low, or dishonorable, his soul re- 
volted from. “ My aunt’s game is little foxes,” he used to say 
laughingly to his friend the Domine. “She has a splendid 
nose for smaller sins.” And therein he wronged her, in so far 
as he should have added that, if she hunted, it was ever fii’st 
on her own estate. But Suzanna herself had not her nephew’s 
keen scent of what a gentleman should do or leave undone. 
Had there not been that battle-royal between them, when Ar- 
nout refused to bear witness who had broken the panfry win- 
dow? “ It is your duty,” said Suzanna solemnly, “your duty 
towards God and your superiors to further the ends of justice 
by all the means in your power.” 

“ It is my duty,” said Arnout stubbornly, “ to myself and to 
my brother gentlemen” — this latter very grandly — “not to 
sneak.” 

“ You are worse than a heathen,” cried Suzanna excitedly. 
“ Go up to your room immediately. You shall live on bread 
and water for a week.” Which he did, much to Suzanna’s 
fiercely cnished misgiving ; but no one ever knew that the cul- 
prit was Karel Donselaar. 

But, in spite of battles-royal and differences of opinion, 
aunt and nephew got on far better than any of the village gos- 
sips had ventured to predict. Arnout could not but respect 
his grim relative, and as long as a man respects a woman, 
their intercourse is aU right. And so he endured her severi- 
ties, because he saw they were never caprices, and, with his far 
more easy-going nature, he accepted her conscientious con- 
clusions, whenever they agreed with his instincts or his tastes. 
Fortunately, his instincts were honorable, and his tastes re- 
fined. And in many matters appertaining to his manliness, 
his aunt developed a most unexpected and most unrighteous 
sympathy. “ Don’t let a bigger boy hit you,” she said ; “ strike 
him back, and beat him if you can.” Arnout was nothing loth 
to obey. Perhaps Suzanna understood the nature of boys 
better than she dared to imagine. 


IN HIS TEENS. 


17 


CHAPTER III. 

IN ms TEENS. 

And so Amout Oostrum grew up to be a joUy young fel- 
low, in love with aU the world around him, even with his ugly 
old aunt. A bright young fellow, with a shock of yellow 
hair and big good-natured eyes, one of those faces that older 
women smile upon because they look so innocently happy, and 
that young girls turn away from because they seem so danger- 
ously fid! of life and fun. Young Amout Oostrum ! People 
smiled to each other when his name was mentioned, and nod- 
ded their heads. “ There’s no harm in Amout Oostrum,” said 
the old gentlemen. But to that the old ladies demmTed. 
“ There is always harm,” remarked one of them enigmatically, 
“ in a man in whom you can see so much good.” And aU the 
girls of the village agreed that he had the “ lovehest eyes.” 
But Amout at eighteen thought little of the girls of the vil- 
lage, though, certainly, if he noticed any of them, they were 
the pretty ones. He liked his male companions, and such time 
as the grammar school of the neighboring town stiU left at his 
disposal he spent in rowing with them, and fencing and fly- 
ing north and south over the dull green plains of his father- 
land, all huddled up and bent double on the top of a two- 
wheeler. And they made hi m captain of the school eleven. 
Start not, athletic reader ; you are stdl in Holland. The Myn- 
i heers have taken to cricket. Well, never mind ; they do their 
I best, and the flannels look picturesque everywhere. 

So everybody liked young Amout Oostrum. There are 
quahties which are good in themselves, and qualities which 
we often think far better because they prove the absence of 
others the world particularly dislikes. Amout had a good 
supply of the former, but he possessed perhaps stOl more of 
the latter class. And he had none of that obstreperous virtue 
which rendered people so afraid of his aunt. 

2 


18 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


So he yielded to her, and made himself no virtue of so do- . 
ing. He yielded, because really, you know, it does quite as ' 
well after aU. Not in the important points, mind you. A fel- 
low must keep a clear eye on his honor, when dealing with 
women. They’ve no idea of that, poor things, and can’t help 
themselves. But as for the rest, what does it signify ? 

That was iHmout’s creed, and he got on very comfortably 
with it. He had a sharp tug with the old lady, when he came 
to leave the grammar school, and the important decision had 
to be taken what course of study he should take up at the 
University. Suzanna had' but one idea, one aspiration with 
regard to this matter. With her own overpowering reverence 
for the “ Domine ” she hoped to see her nephew a minister of 
the Estabhshed Church. And he, if he had owned to any 
definite opinion on the subject, would probably have said that 
preaching, on the whole, was preferable to being preached to. 
No, now he came to think of it, he would rather not be a par- 
son. “ But what then ? ” says Suzanna, pale with suppressed 
agitation. His life — not a paltry seventy winters — ^Ms life, 
eai-thly and eternal, the whole immensity of a soul, his soul, 
hung in the balance. She clasped her knitting down tight 
upon her knees. “ Oh, anything, you know,” says yoimg Hope- 
ful. “ Pni-driver. Ride about in a little carriage. Keep down 
surplus population. Or — ah — ^lawyer. Open prison gates, and 
that sort of thing. And set the captive free.” And then he 
threw his arm round his aunt’s neck and kissed her, and won- 
dered (to himself) how her tough old heart could thump like 
that under the coarse stuff gown. 

“ I’ve been thinking about it in the night,” he remarked at 
breakfast next morning, breaking an egg, “and I fancy I 
should ,like to study theology. After aU, it is, as you often 
say, aunt, the one engrossing subject in the world. And so 
it deserves attention. I’ve talked it over with Jakob te Bakel, 
and, yes, I may as weU study theology.” 

Thinking about it in the night! WeU, if from ten to a 
quarter-past and from half-past seven to eight be night, then 
Aniout was not the victim of an erroneous impression. And 
he had certainly talked about the subject to Jakob te Bakel, 
the son of a neighboring clergyman, a young minister himself 


AND OUT OF THEM. 


19 


now, some half a dozen years Amout’s senior, and much ad- 
nm-ed by the latter youth. Amout, by-the-bye, was great in 
admiration. He had said to his friend, “And now you are a 
parson, Jakob, do you like it?” And Jakob had answered, 
“ Yes,” very quietly, and had added to himself in an under- 
tone, “Thank God!” For all the awfulness of a possible 
“ No ” had been borne in upon his soul. Arnout had caught 
the whispered words, and had walked on for several moments 
in solemn reverential silence, till Jakob spoke of something 
else. 

He did not teU his aunt that he had taken his resolve to 
please her, because, in the absence of any decided vocation to 
the contrary, it seemed to him a deed of honor to accord her 
this one consummate happiness in reward of aU the sacrifices 
she was ever making for his sake. 

None the less, he had httle idea how great those sacrifices 
were, or how much anxious thought it cost her to enable him 
to go to the University at all. Suzanna had spent a sleepless 
night. Decidedly she took life too “ vigorously.” 

And so at the time when first we came across him, Amout 
Oostrum was a theological student at the University of Over- 
stad. 


CHAPTER IV. 

AND OUT OF THEM. 

OuE young gentleman studied theology — at least, so the 
University calendar said. He himself considered that he was 
making rapid progress in that knowledge of human nature 
which forms a whole “ man,” a wise man, a man of the world. 
A careful distinction between good wine and bad, between 
cheap cigars and expensive ones (especially when told the 
price), the recognition of a pretty ankle in passing, and, 
above all, a free-and-easy air — sufficiently dignified and yet 
sufficiently famihar — towards waiters everywhere. A man of 
the world. Poor simple young fellows ! Every little world 
has its own sort of “ man.” And there is a considerable differ- 


20 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


ence between the cheap polish of a Dutch university town and | 
the heavily gilded article as manufactured in London or Paris. | 
Both, however, have this much in common, that neither is 
“ warranted to last.” 

A Dutch university is not, alas ! an edifying academy to 
study human nature at. Grranted that confusion between 
“ mashing ” and manliness which comes upon most hyper-civil- 
ized lads with the first bloom of down on their cheeks ; 
granted, moreover, complete immunity in pubhc opinion for , 
not only every folly, but almost every vice, on the groimd 
that the delinquent is “ a student,” and the result can hardly 
be considered a satisfactory one. Young Amout passed 
through the fiames, not unscathed, perhaps, yet barely singed. 
He did not retain about him, as so many do, the smeU of the 
fire. He was sheltered by his surroundings, his companions, 
his “ set ; ” for at his university and in his time the theological - 
students, on the whole, with a few loudly trumpeted exceptions, 
shone forth as rare stars on a stormy night. His character 
steadied and took definite shape, as a man’s character should 
do at this period of his life. Vicious it was almost impossible 
for him to become — his tastes recoiled too instinctively from 
what was low and common, — ^but he could no longer keep his 
eyes from looking vice in the face as they never had done be- 
fore. And that look leaves its impress on a man’s inmost soul, 
even when he turns away. Superficial as he sometimes seemed, 
perhaps, and easy-going, our hero had a passion of admiration 
somewhere in his heart that, once awakened, could not be got 
to sleep again. That in itself was superficial, perhaps, or un- 
balanced, or call it what you wiU, if you care for mental dis- 
section, for nobody quite knew beforehand what would set 
“ the tremble in his heart ” a-going. God bless the young fel- 
lows of the nineteenth century that stiU have strength of mind 
enough for genuine admiration! Arnout Oostrum could 
“get along” with everybody, except with those unfortunate 
creatures, often harmless enough in his aunt’s estimation, 
whom he designated as “ beastly cads,” and turned away from 
at once. But hking you — oh, that was another matter, very 
akin to loving, only that we men of the world hate the sound 
of the mawkish word ; if you liked a man or woman it was for 


KNIGHT-ERRANT. 


21 


something good or great in them that yon missed and fain 
woidd have. WeR, weU, he was only twenty. And he loved 
his aunt, and Jakob, and SchiRer, and Alfred de Musset, and 
Dorothy up at Steenevest, who was to be his wife some day, 
as every one agreed, as soon as he chose to give her the oppor- 
tunity of saying “ Yes.” And he loved his violin, which he 
played but indifferently, and life, and the golden summer time, 
when the air was heavy with enjoyment. In love with the 
world around him, in a word, and with himself as its centre- 
point. 

And so he went down the dusty road in the soft, sweet- 
smeRing gloaming, with the drowsy old tune on his Rps, and 
his heart fuR of the new-mown hay and the jasmine. And he 
stopped, where the heavy bushes burst forward over the path 
with their luxuriance of a thousand creamy stars, and broke 
off one or two of them, half regretfuRy for the life he was de- 
stroying. And then he sprang back upon the roadway with a 
bound fuR of youth and health and happiness. 

And so he turned the comer of his fate. 


CHAPTER V. 

KNIGHT-ERRANT. 

A CONVEYANCE of some kind or other, evidently a shabby 
concern, was standing in the middle of the road at a consider- 
able distance from the turning Arnout had just taken. Was 
it standing or lying ? It looked aR the more disreputable from 
its having sunk awry with so dead-drunk an appearance as 
only a human being or an old vehicle can assume. Something 
was wrong, evidently. Amout ran forward, shading his eyes 
with the hand that held the jasmine blossoms, as the shadows 
f eR heavy between him and the group over yonder by the break 
in the trees. Something was wrong, most certainly. The 
horse had been taken out. It stood apart, a peasant holding 
it. One or two other passers-by — aR the “ traffic ” which the 
lonely road could boast at such an hour — had also stopped. 


22 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


Somebody was sitting by the roadside, the former occupant of 
the candage, doubtless — a female, by Jove! Aimout’s heart 
went pit-a-pat, with running and curiosity. He stopped, 
breathless, a few paces from the little tragi-comedy in front of 
him. 

The long white road lay warm and stiU beneath the deepen- 
ing shadows. Two men and a boy, who stood staring stolidly 
at the broken axle, smashed in two just under the box, drew 
slow hands out of deep pockets and lazily touched their caps 
to the new-comer. The horse, Mmp and woe-begone hke the 
vehicle, gazed cahnly at this source of unexpected rest, motion- 
less, were it not for an occasional wink of its weary eye. 

Amout, however, saw httle of,aU this. He was striving — ; 
Twixt timidity and temerity — to get a glimpse of the lady’s 
face, not an easy thing as long as she lay up against the taU 
beech tree and turned her back towards him. A slender arm 
was holding a handkerchief over the eyes ; the figure and pose 
were graceful ; the dress, some soft black with a sparkle here 
and there, was in perfect taste. Doubtless the face would be 
beautiful too. 

He coughed — a stupid little cough ; and then blushed at the 
clumsy expedient. 

The lady by the tree turned her head at the sound. 

It was the most beautiful face he had seen in his fife. 

Well, yes, I believe she was a handsome woman, especially 
at that age. Certainly she was handsome. And even had she 
not been as handsome as she was, what else could Amout 
have thought of her, when he found her thus by the roadside ? 
Shall carriages upset on lovely summer evenings, and shall 
young twenty come a-down the road and not be upset in his 
turn by the sight of beautiful distress? Fie upon young 
twenty if so it be! Let him never smeU the smell of jas- 
mine again. 

“ Mon Dieu ! ” said the lady — and what else should a French- 
woman say ? “ Un homme comme n faut ! Quelle chance ! 
Avow, monsieur, that you come ^ propos ! ” 

The recognition of his claim to that most charming of aU 
appellations pleased Arnout so hugely that he felt at his ease 
at once. But, alas ! he knew that his French was rusty, and 


KNIGHT-ERRANT. 


23 


he bitterly regretted lost opportunities as he stammered out his 
reply— 

If he could be of any use in any possible manner ! If there 
was anything that madame would desire to have done ! If she 
would but give expression to her wishes — But the lady in- 
temipted him sharply, though with the sweetest of smiles — 

“ Si — si — si,” she said. “ But without doubt, monsieur, there 
are a hundred things at least you can do for me. You can 
settle with the bonhomme over there, and you can procm’c me 
another conveyance, and you can help me into it, and, if you 
are a doctor, you can cure me, for I have broken my foot.” 

“ Broken her foot ! ” Arnout’s face showed the deep com- 
miseration which his powers of language — especially of for- 
eign language — were quite inadequate to express. Some idi- 
otic conception of a compliment about breaking any number 
of hearts, millions — ^myriads — floated across his brain, but he 
fortunately did not feel capable of expressing it elegantly, so 
he merely said instead — 

“ Does it hurt ? ” 

“If it hurts?” repeated the Frenchwoman, stOl smiling. 
“ I am suffering- agonies. What wiU you have ? They must 
be borne.” 

Her face was white with pain, and she set her lips hard be- 
tween the smiles. She drew her dress up slightly, thereby just 
showing enough of the lovely injured member, and then feU 
back again with a gasp. “ I cannot move myself,” she said 
faintly. “ The — ^the bag. In the carriage ! There is eau-de- 
cologne.” 

Arnout, who had been standing hke a booby. Addling at his 
jasmine twigs, woke up immediately at this sign of positive 
suffering. He was inside the old caleche in a moment. He 
had found the most exquisite of dressing bags — or so it 
seemed to the simple country lad — a marvel of soft leather 
and sweet violet. He had selected from half a dozen silver 
flasks — ^what an age lost in the seeking ! — the one he was in 
search of. He had caught up a couple of handkerchiefs from 
the bag — soft and small, they seemed to him hke puffs of dan- 
dehon seed — and he was back by the side of the lovely creat- 
ure on the grass. The boors stood staring open-mouthed. 


24 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


Then our hero drew a small pair of scissors from his pocket 
and cut away the first Paris-made boot he had ever seen in his 
life from the first Parisian foot. His heart trembled, but not 
his hand, as a deep-drawn sob of mingled pain and relief broke 
from the sufferer. He went back to the carriage and got one 
of its faded cushions, which looked more sordid than ever un- 
der that Cinderella foot. What a cushion for such a jewel ! 

“ If I had only a little brandy ! ” he said. 

“ You will find some in the carriage,” whispered the patient. 
“ The httle bottle under the livre d’heures. It is the littlest bot- 
tle of aU, you will understand, monsieur, that is the brandy- 
flask.” She smiled again as she painfuUy gasped out the 
words, smiled at the feeling in her own heart which 
prompted those words to the lad. 

And Aniout, having done aU he could for the moment, re- 
tired to consult with the ditver. From him he learned the 
cause of the accident, not that he had doubted it from the first. 
There is no road in Holland so narrow, no village-street so fre- 
quented, but it can have its steam-tramways crashing along it. 
The worse for you, if your horses object to the sight or the 
sound, or if there is no room for them to swerve aside between 
the rails and the ditch. Amout Varelkamp understood aU 
about the sudden wrench and the broken axle. The lady, who 
had started from her seat, had lost her balance and fallen out 
on the road. She was driven back to Overstad. One of the 
men could go to the village for another carriage. They would 
probably have a conveyance there of some sort. He could be 
back with it in an hour, or may be in an hour and a half. 
There would be no more trams passing till half-past nine. 
Mynheer saw that it was getting dark. 

Yes, yes ; Arnout knew all that. He looked at his watch. 
Ten minutes to eight. Could the delicate woman on the grass 
be left lying there for another hour? And supposing she 
could, how could she bear the long drive to the city, or even 
to the wretched inn at the village ? He stood there undecided. 
He looked at the driver in despair — at the harmless, useless 
peasants in disgust, Wliy could they not find a sensible so- 
lution of the difficulty ? Why need they stare unmeaningly 
at his eveiy movement ? Fools ! 


KNIGHT-ERRANT. 


25 


The driver was depressed by his own misfortune. Selfish 
brute ! 

But what would his aunt say? He grew hot and cold at 
the thought. Well, there was no help for it. 

“Madame,” he began resolutely, advancing again to the 
stranger, who was now half unconscious between the increas- 
ing gloom around her and the pain of her foot. “ We shah, 
have to carry you as best we can to the nearest house. I re- 
gret deeply. There is no other way. Can you bear it ? ” 

“ Faites, monsieur,” she murmured. “ Mais faites vite.” 

How much money had he in his pocket? More than he 
could spare. Not enough, perhaps, to pay for the carriage, 
and he would fain have paid for the damage also. He had 
seen a purse in the dressing-bag ; his cheek glowed at the idea 
of touching it. He went over to the cabman and gave him the 
address of his university rooms. His aunt must not know. 

Then he summoned the two peasants, and they moved slowly 
forward, aU in a lump. And the little boy lifted up his voice 
and said, “ PU carry something.” 

It was not an easy matter to move the stranger, who was 
taU and svelte. Very tenderly and very carefully Amout got 
her in his arms. He had hoped to carry her, with one of the 
countrymen, on their crossed hands, but he soon saw that her 
foot was too painful to allow of this. So he caught her up 
boldly, and' with his blood tingling with the effort and aU his 
sinews crisped, strode manfully down the road, calling to the 
boy to follow with the bag and the wraps from the carriage. 
And she, despite the agony she was enduiing, could yield her- 
self with a dull pleasure to the gentle strength upholding her. 
All the first foolish admiration had sunk to cahn in the young 
fellow’s breast, lulled by the overwhehning impulse of pity for 
suffering and the firm resolve to alleviate it by eveiy means in 
his power. 


2G 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE, 


CHAPTER VI. 

ON HOSPITABLE THOUGHTS INTENT. 

Mejuffrouw Varelkamp and the Domini, discussing the 
poor of the parish over their tea in the veranda, saw this 
strange httle procession emerge out of the twilight. Stum- 
bhng rapidly though awkwardly foi-ward, for the weight about 
his neck had grown almost intolerably heavy, Amout came up 
the short garden-path. The httle boy ran after him, and 
banged the wooden gate. Before Suzanna had had time to 
realize her own amazement, she must face the difficulty and 
act, Arnout fell past her towards the sofa in the little sitting- 
room beyond the veranda, and there deposited his burden 
with a groan of rehef. It might have been almost an omen 
that he thus bent beneath that burden so hghtly taken to his 
breast. The lady herself opened her eyes. The room was 
almost dark, but she could discern the female figure in the 
open window. 

“De gr§,ce,” she said, “your son is a paragon; and you, 
madame, I have the conviction, are a refuge of the^stressed.” 
And then she fainted away for good and aU. 

“No, thank you, Amout,” said Suzanna, as soon as the 
Frenchwoman was deposited on the bed in the spare-room. 
“ I am quite sure we do not want you any longer. You have 
done quite enough, I am sure.” 

“ But, tante, I wanted to see if the boot ” 

“ Thank you. I shall see without your help. I believe I 
am still able to manage a sprained ankle.” 

“ A broken foot ! ” cried Arnout indignantly. 

“We shall soon know that. Most broken feet turn out to 
be sprained ankles. Go down and pour Jakob out another 
cup of tea.” 

“ He will do that for liimseK, but you may — want something 
I could get,” 


ON HOSPITABLE THOUGHTS INTENT. 


27 


“ I want my temper,” said Siizanna spitefully. “ Go down- 
stairs and see if I have left it there.” 

When his aunt got into the satirical stage Amout always 
obeyed her. He knew that it was the ante-chamber to the 
highly indignant one, so he withdrew, with a last look at 
the invalid, and Suzanna set herself to examine the mischief 
done. 

Mejuffrouw Varelkamp did not like foreigners. She con- 
sidered them superfluities. She loved them, of course, in a 
general sense, like aU her neighbors and her enemies, as by 
Scripture bound, but she loved them from a distance. She 
saw no necessity for their existence, though the Almighty had 
willed it otherwise, and it seemed to her that whenever she 
heard of their doings, which was seldom, they were doing some- 
thing wrong. She read the Provincial Gazette every evening 
from nine till half-past, immediately after washing up her tea- 
cups, but the only impression made upon her by its brief 
column of foreign intelligence (of which she forgot the con- 
tents even while she read them) was this — ^that the world would 
be peaceful without the French and the Russians, and honest 
without the Germans and the English ; and that, moreover, 
the far places of the earth were full of wickedness, murders 
and robberies and treacheries unknown in the good village of 
Wyk. Mejutfi’ouw Varelkamp considered it a special dispensa- 
tion of Providence on her behalf that she had not been born a 
foreigner. 

And Mejnffrouw Varelkamp did not like beauties, whether 
of home manufacture or imported from abroad. For these 
also she saw no necessity, and of these also was she convinced 
that they did more harm than good. She would have laughed 
at the accusation, but it was true nevertheless. Perhaps she 
would have admitted, after a moment, that there was some 
tiTith in it. She would have pointed — figuratively — to Cleo- 
patra’s nose, for Pascal’s saying that the face of the world’s 
history would have been changed, had Cleopatra’s nose been a 
little different to what it was, had long been a favorite with 
Suzanna. Not that she read Pascal, but the quotation had 
tickled her fancy, and stuck in her memory. She had half a 
dozen such quotations, gathered promiscuously, and therefore 


28 


AN OLD IVIAID’S LOVE. 


ready to hand. “Chaque ame est soeiu* d’une ame,” was 
another. And she used to say, with a grim smile, that her 
sister-soul must have “ died still-born.” 

Well, and this saying about Cleopatra’s nose? Wasn’t it 
true, if yon come to think of it ? She wasn’t a beauty, thank 
Heaven ! And she had never pretended to be, like so many 
other young women. Not but that a girl might be glad of her 
good looks ; but beauty as an article of commerce, a specula- 
tion, a bait- 

No, decidedly, Suzanna preferred plain features, especially 
in the close vicinity of her foster-child. 

And Mejuffrouw Varelkamp did not like strangers, even 
when they were of her own race and nation. She liked to 
know all about you, and your father and mother, and your 
great-uncles and great-aunts. She was strong in genealogies, 
and the people with whose genealogy she was not acquainted 
might be very good people, doubtless, but there was no reason 
why she should trouble her head about them. “ And Arphaxad 
begat Salah 5 and Salah begat Eber, and unto Eber were born 
two sons.” That was her social religion. Holland is a small 
country, and it is not difficult to be a zealous devotee. On 
the contrary, it would have been very difficult indeed for Eber 
to beget two sons without Miss Varelkamp knowing aU about 
the circumstance, and when they were born, and whose nurse 
they had, and what the doctor said. If nobody could tell you 
who had begotten Barabbas, that only proved to Miss Varel- 
kamp that there was no excuse for his being begotten at all. 
Had she belonged to the “ upper ten thousand ” — ^let us say 
“ upper two thousand ” for little Dutchdom — ^her knowledge 
would have extended aU over the country ; as it was, it con- 
fined itself to her own highly respectable provincial circle, out- 
side which was darkness and the chaos of the unknown. 

“I was thinking,” said Amout’s voice in a low, distinct 
whisper behind the door, “ that I had perhaps better get the 
doctor, Tante Suze.” 

At first she vouchsafed no answer but a scornful sniff. 
Then suddenly it struck her that he might take her silence 
for consent, and she threw open the door. 

Amout stood on the nari’ow landing, under the light of a 


ON HOSPITABLE THOUGHTS INTENT. 


29 


flickering oH-lamp. His face was troubled, and bis whole 
attitude denoted anxiety. 

“ Yes,” said his aunt 5 “ go immediately for four professors 
from Utrecht. One can fill the shower-bath, and one can puU 
the string, and the other two can hold you under it. Good- 
night, Amout.” And she flung-to the door and locked it 
triumphantly. 

Had any one told Suzanna Varelkamp that morning that a 
stranger, a foreigner, a woman — of whom she knew neither 
the country, the origin, nor the name — ^would pass a night 
under her roof, in her guest-chamber, she would have said that 
never, never would she permit such a thing. Such stranger, 
if alive, would be removed to the village inn or the parsonage, 
and if she died on the way — ^weU, there was a dead-house at 
the cemetery. 

She busied herself now with the sufferer, who revived after 
a few moments from her faint. Suzanna was an excellent 
nurse — none better — ^light-fingered and strong-nerved. She 
ascertained soon enough that the injury to the foot was a sprain 
of some importance, and she got arnica from her room close 
by, with a smde of satisfaction at the disappearance of Amout 
from the staircase, and deftly bandaged the swollen part. 
Then, seeing that the patient was weak with the pain and ex- 
citement, and stdl almost unconscious, she lighted the little oil 
night-light from her own room, with its cracked shade of 
Abraham sacrificing Isaac, and stole out of the chamber and 
locked the door on the outside. 


CHAPTER VII. 

PARSON JAKOB. 

“ There is no more tea,” said Jakob, in a melancholy voice 
— “ at least, none worth drinking. You will have to do with- 
out, Amout, for your aunt has sent away the peat-stove.” 

Arnout was in a hilarious mood. The events of the evening 
had excited liim. He burst out into joyous laughter. You 


/ 


30 


AN OLD IVIAID’S LOVE. 


tea-pot ! ” he cried ; “ your one idea of happiness is to be bidm- 
ful and running over with the exhilarating fluid. How many 
cups have you had this evening already? You are an old 
woman, Jakob. I beheve you think heaven will be one eternal 
tea-flght. It is your religion.” 

Tea-ism, in fact,” said the clergyman, with his quiet twinkle 
— he had the clearest of grey eyes. Don’t try to be funny, 
Amout. I don’t think you can manage even as easy a thing 
as the rehgious joke. If I have contracted the pernicious 
habit of tea-imbibing, it is as a martyr in a righteous cause. 
It is one of a clergyman’s principal duties to take tea. In the 
rehgious world of to-day the tea-cup plays the part which the 
bottle played in the pohtical world a hundred years ago. If, 
therefore, I appreciate the tea-cup ” 

“ Oh, bother ! ” interrupted Arnout. “ Not a bad bit of 
anatomy, eh?” 

“ Who ? WThat ? ” said J akob. 

“ Jakob, you are insufferable. Of course you didn’t see her 
as I carried her up-stairs. The reverend ! The cleric ! ” 

^^Amout, did I not warn you against attempting to be funny ? 
I certainly saw the lady you carried in here, and I thought she 
looked very iU, and also handsome. But I’m not accustomed, 
nor are you, to expressing that latter fact in the phraseology 

of the connoisseur, and Don’t get angry. I’ve only put 

one foot on the pulpit step, and I’U take it off again as soon as 
you promise to behave yourself. There, there ! Tell me how 
it happened. I’m as curious to know as you can be to teU.” 

So Arnout described the events of the evening, unnecessarily 
deploring, with that painful self-consciousness of youthful 
vanity which ever either blames itself or boasts, that he had 
omitted opportunities of shining in the strange lady’s opinion. 
Jakob sympathized with him, and laughed at him, and re- 
proached him for his conceit, as was ever this good-natured 
mentor’s way. At the bottom of his heart the minister ad- 
mired his young companion profoundly, but he was resolved 
to retain that admiration as long as he could — so he said. He 
said it to Amout, turning off the earnestness of his meaning 
by the flippancy of his expression — that also was his wont. 
The good ladies of the village sometimes complained to each 


PARSON JAKOB. 


31 


other that their minister was a wonld-be funny man — a most 
objectionable thing in a minister. “ He is not in earnest, my 
dear. You cannot be ‘funny’ and in earnest.” He was so 
terribly in earnest, and so young and beai-dless, he could not 
but shrink from the intensity of his own convictions, and 
often, when his heart trembled with its earnestness, his hps 
woidd quiver to a grin. He was striving at this moment, with 
true anxiety, to account for his friend’s unnatural tone. “ Exit 
the monster, shrieking and snorting ! Enter Knight Ainout, 
the deliverer ! ” he said. 

But the young student’s mood had sobered down. The sud- 
den incident on the quiet country road, trivial as it may seem 
to the supercilious reader, had been an event full of interest 
and excitement to the unsophisticated lad who had “ seen life ” 
only as it is lived in Overstad. A carriage accident! A 
foreign lady m distress I The shades of night, and a French- 
woman in his arms all the way home through the scents of 
summer I What more would you have to turn his head? Yet 
his head was not turned ; a Dutchman’s all-round head takes a 
deal of turning. He had recognized the strangeris beauty as 
a fact, a very interestiug and admirable fact, no doubt, but he 
had noticed it as we flush with pleasure at the sight of a 
beautiful vase. The romance of the meeting stimulated him, 
and he would have liked to have fallen in love with the “ res- 
cued ” fair one headlong and at first sight, as knowing that 
this was the proper thing to do. It would have put the finish- 
ing touch to the evening’s adventure. But the more he real- 
ized this, and the more he tried to excite himself into it, the 
more he felt that his head was getting lamentably cool. Per- 
haps, had she been well and sprightly, ai*med for the conquest 
and eager to conquer — ^perhaps ; but now the feehng of com- 
miseration and the eagerness to bestow succor had swelled up- 
wards and swamped every other consideration, and Ainout 
was only hoping with warm-hearted kindness that the stranger 
had not much pain and would soon get well again. He hoped 
this, heart and soul, and he was conscious of a very passion 
of anxiety that the little house should do all it could — and 
more, if necessary — to afford her relief. , 

“ Poor thing ! ” he said, and there was such a genial pity in 


32 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


his tone, that Jakob felt reassured, for men do not pity when 
they love. 

Love ! Nonsense ! Nothing could prove more plainly how 
unused we were to romance, or anything like romance, in the 
quiet tittle village of Wyk. The merest event at aU out of the 
common immediately gave rise to the wildest speculation, even 
in the tranquil heart of the parson. No wonder that Suzanna’s 
soul was troubled within her as she slowly descended the stairs. 
No wonder that even Amout’s careless manner failed to re- 
assure her. But she need hardly have sat up in her bed for 
half the night, with her thoughts intent on the forks and 
spoons, speculating whether the Frenchwoman, whose dis- 
torted ankle she herseK had tended, was at this moment draw- 
ing them out of their hiding-place, or whether that creak in 
the passage 

WeU, well, we are none of us consistent in our passions. 
Great Heaven, what an awful place would this world be, if we 
were ! 


CHAPTER VHI. 

FIRST APPEARANCE OF TANTE CRCESUS. 

Next morning the Widow Barssehus came to see the stran- 
ger and hear all about it. And she brought Dorothy with her, 
for Dorothy had begged to come. 

The Widow Barssehus occupied one of the most dehghtful 
positions in the world. She was the only wealthy member of 
her family. Wealthy ! WeU, you know, most things go by 
comparison, and few are so distinctly relative as the idea of 
wealth. Mevrouw Barssehus hved in a substantial old house 
on one of the silent Overstad canals, a house with two win- 
dows on each side of the “ stoep.” She kept two maidservants, 
and a man for the knives and errands. And she could have a 
fly from the stables as often as she chose. Arnout Oostrum 
called her “ Tante Croesus.” 

• She always knew everything about the cottage at Wyk, 
though Wyk is a two hours’ drive from the town. She knew 


FIRST APPEARANCE OF TANTE CRCESUS. 


33 


things as soon as they happened — sometimes a little sooner. 
And in the latter case she had “ always foreseen.” The life of 
the good Widow Barsselins was spent in an engrossing and 
almost feverish interest in those matters which in no wise con- 
cerned her. 

So Suzanna, careful not to offend, had despatched a hurried 
note with last night’s post, and the widow, having found it on '' 
her breakfast-table, had sent her errand-man round to the 
liveiy-stables instanter, and had enjoyed an hour of pleasm*- 
able flurry before she was stowed away in the close cab with 
Dorothy, a pair of shawls, her fat Maltese “ Bijou,” and a large 
bouquet of roses. Mevrouw Bai’sseHus always brought her 
sister roses from her garden, to prove that you could grow 
these things in the city far better than among the fields. 

Dorothy was staying with Mevrouw. Her curiosity must 
have been considerable to cause her to comd that two hours’ 
diive.on so lovely a summer morning. In any case, she was 
glad enough when it came to an end at last. “Mark my 
words,” said the Widow Barsselins, as they stopped at the little 
garden gate. She said it for the twentieth time that morning, 
and for the millionth in her unremarkable existence. “ Mark 
my words. It is the cheval de Troie which my sister has 
fetched into her house.” She spelt it “ cheval de Troyes,” and 
believed that the expression contaibed an allusion to some 
event of French history, she had not the remotest idea which. 

But you need not go thinking, aU the same, that the Widow 
Barssebus was a fool. She was as ignorant — and as ’cute — as 
a perfect education left the women of thirty years ago. We 
have changed all that ; and the ignorance — and the ’cuteness — 
are gone. 

“Drive on to the village,” she said, standing — a portly 
figure — with Bijou in one hand, and the roses in the other, 

“ and be back by three exactly. You can have some bread- 
and-cheese at the inn, and coffee ; but no beer, and no gin. 
I’m not going to be dropped into the canal on my way home, 
to please anybody’s drunken habits. You are a drunkard, 
probably, and I pity your wife and fourteen children. I would 
give you ‘Jan Janssen’s Ruin’ if I thought it would do you 
any good. But you look past help.” 

3 


34 


AN OLD JIAID’S LOVE. 


The man grinned, and touched his hat. He had heard this 
httle speech before. It was true that he drank. As for the 
fom’teen children, Mevrouw Barsselius knew nothing about 
them. It was an ancient joke with her, which had long ago 
deepened into an article of belief, that every di*unkard had an 
enormous family. And she would have considered the number 
twelve ” an indecency, because of its allusion to the patriarchs. 

“ Suzanna,” she said, as she proceeded up the naiTOw path, 
“ I have brought you some roses. They have suffered a good 
deal on the way, but I thought you might care to see what my 
roses are hke.” 

Mevrouw Barsselius was stout and warm. She did not 
mind the former, and she enjoyed the latter. She lived in 
continual terror of an imaginary draught. 

“And where,” she asked, “is your Frenchwoman? Shut 
the door, Aumout, and leave Bijou alone.” 

“ Up-stairs in her room ” began Arnout. 

“ In my guest-chamber,” interrupted Miss Varelkamp tartly ; 
“ where she is likely to remain for the next six weeks.” 

Mevrouw Barsselius cast an amused look at her elder sister 
out of her canny little eyes. The exasperation of Suzanna’s 
tone delighted her. Ajid she pitied the poor old lady a little 
as weU. But she enjoyed teasing above all things in the 
world — except scandal. 

“ TeU me aU about it, Amout,” she said, as she settled her- 
self comfortably in her own especial easy-chair. She had 
given it to Suzanna for that very purpose fourteen years ago. 
“ Begin at the beginning, and teU me exactly what you said 
and what she said, and what you did and what she did. Of 
com’se I know that you now think you should have said and 
done differently. Never mind. TeU me aU about it. A 
Frenchwoman upset between Heelsum and Wyk ! It is de- 
lightful ! ” 

So Amout, very red in the face and furious at his own 
foolish embarrassment, had to tell the whole stupid stoiy over 
again, with Dorothy’s gi'ave eyes fixed tranquilly on his. How 
tiresome these old women were, and how small the room 
looked ! Good heavens ! was it possible that so simple an oc- 
currence could be construed into an event of gossipy interest ? 


FIRST APPEARANCE OP TANTE CRCESUS. 


35 


“And then,” he went on savagely, “ I took her up in my 
arms as tenderly as I could ” 

Suzanna, as if hearing of the fact for the first time, gave 
an involuntary start. 

Don’t interrupt, Suze,” cried Mevrouw Barssehus ; clutch- 
ing her sleepy lapdog, her face beaming with enjoyment. 
“ Let the boy alone. ‘And so I took her up,’ Ainout, ‘ with a 
touch of ineffable tenderness.’ Go on.” 

Amout would have hked to lay hold of his aunt with a 
touch that was far from tender. “ How vulgar she is,” he 
thought, and he stole a glance at Dorothy. Dorothy was 
looking calmly at him. She said nothing, but there was an 
amused twinkle in her eyes. Wretch ! 

All the same, he felt that he was very fond of Dorothy, and 
he wished they would not make a fool of liim in her presence. 

“ The entr’acte,” remarked his aunt Barssehus enigmatically, 
when he had told all she cared to extract from him. “ I re- 
serve my seat for the rest of the performance. And now, show 
me the heroine ! ” 

“ Madame de Mongelas is up-stairs, Annemarie,” said Suze 
severely. “ I have told you so before. I have consented to 
her remaining in the house as long as she is confined to her — 
couch. As soon as she is able to be moved, she will be carried 
to the hotel in the village.” 

“ I see,” said Mevrouw Barssehus. “ What did you say her 
name was ? ” 

Arnout took up a card from the httle side-table, where tlie 
town roses were doing their b.est to revive by the aid of a 
tumblerful of water and a thimbleful of country air, Mevrouw 
Barssehus having ordered the windows to be closed. It was a 
tiny card, neat and unpretending. He held it towards his 
aunt. “ Vicomtesse de Mongelas.” 

“ Phew ! ” said the fat lady, with a most immistakable 
whistle. “ Vicomtesse ! The princess out of the fairy tale ! 
Dorothy must see her immediately. Fetch her down.” 

“Annemarie, I have told you already ” 

Somebody knocked at the door at this juncture. They ah 
started, and Mevrouw gave a httle scream. It was as if the 
mysterious stranger stood at the door — the interesting, the 


36 


AN OLD ]\IAID’S LOVE. 


alarming stranger. And the simple souls were fluttered by 
the thought. 

It was only Jakob te Bakel, come to inquire after the patient. 

Mevrouw Barsselius did not like parsons as a rule, and 
pious parsons least of aU. 

“ Oho, Domiue ! ” she cried with a sounding slap of her fat 
hand on her favorite’s silken back, “ you here already to make 
kind inquiries ! No need to demand now if the lady is good- 
looking. Trust you saints to find out the prettiest sinners. 
But, mind you, the little papist is no sheep of your fold. 
Hands off, till we send for the vilLage priest.” 

“ Do you reaUy believe, sister,” said Suzanna in an awe- 
struck tone, “ that the person up-stairs wfll prove to be an 
idolatrous child of Rome ? ” 

Mevrouw Barssehus burst out laughing, and Dorothy re- 
marked sententiously, that aU French people were Roman 
Cathohcs. 

“ Except the Huguenot pastors who come here to colleet,” 
said Jakob, as he limped to a chair. “We get about a couple 
of score per annum, and I suppose they collect for somebody.” 

“ Hold your tongues,” cried the rich widow, with another 
slap. “Let’s have no more talking, but show us the orig- 
inal.” 

“ She can’t come down-stairs,” said Suzanna decidedly. “ In 
fact she can’t move, and as you, Annemarie, have never 
mounted a staircase for the last seven years, at the very least, 
you will have to go back without seeing her to-day, that’s cer- 
tain.” 

Suzanna did not often contradict her younger sister so flatly. 
She was a httle bit afraid of her as a rule, or rather, she 
could never quite shake off the imposing impression which 
Annemarie had made upon her ever since they were children 
together. Annemarie had been the favorite with then* parents 
— and with everybody; had been the prettier, brighter, 
pleasanter child. And Suzanna had always been taught to 
consider Annemarie’s comfort and to obey her behests. Of 
course Annemarie had made a “desirable” settlement — she 
was born to do so ; and ever since, aU through her velvety 
cluldless wife and widowhood, the thinner, sourer sister’s ad- 


FIRST APPEARANCE OF TANTE CRCESUS. 37 

miration had only found fresh abundance to feed upon. At 
times a doubt of Annemarie’s superiority would cross her 
mind, but she always suppressed it as a sin. Besides, was 
not the widow affluent, amiable, good-tempered? Suzanna 
did not covet her riches, but she could not help experiencing 
their chaian. To her whole existence of hand-to-mouth strug- 
gle, of daily renunciation, it was a wonderful, a beautifid thing 
to be able to do, pecuniarily, whatever one liked. It was a 
force wliich it were ^wi’ong, as well as foolish, to ignore. 
There was nothing mean or money-loving in the awe with 
wliich she spoke of her sister’s unlimited power of ordering 
cabs, as she trudged to the village church in the rain. But the 
money, whatever hold it might have on her imagination, left 
her moral sense untouched. And whenever that came into 
conflict with Annemarie’s opinions — wliich was frequently — 
and she felt certain, into the bargain, that Annemarie was 
wrong — which was by no means so commonly — she stood up 
and said her say to her sister without fear and without re- 
proach. 

‘‘ You won’t see the Frenchwoman to-day,” she repeated, 
“ unless you go up and have a look at her in her room.” 

Now the Widow Barsselius had just the faintest touch of 
asthma, a pleasant weakness, for it absolutely precluded her 
from mounting more then six steps at a time — sis steps, just 
the number of her own “ stoep ” ; that was a very considerate 
aiTangement of the powers that niled her destiny! There- 
fore she was very gentle to her ailment, and nurtured it ten- 
derly. 

She slapped her hand down so violently at this stage of the 
proceedings, that the little wretch beneath it set up a yeU of 
protest. Upon which she caught him to her ample bosom 
and covered him with kisses, angrily ordering Dorothy not to 
laugh. 

“ Do you think,” she cried, “ that I have come aU the way 
fi’om Overstad and paid ^ix florins and the turnpikes and the 
man’s food and fifty cents pour-boire, and that I’m going to 
have nothing in return for all my expenditure? The same 
way the woman went up she can come down. And I don’t 
leave this house till I’ve found out all about her, and whether 


38 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


she’s a fit person to be left alone with a'pack of children like ^ 
you ! ” 

She was burning with cmiosity to see a live viscountess. 
And it was her invariable habit to treat her elder sister like a < 
poor, ignorant infant, and her nephew like an overgrown boy. 

“ Suzauna,” she would remark to her cronies, “ has no knowl- 
edge of the world’s realities. She has not sense enough to be 
anything except an old maid. And she is the dearest old 
maid in existence.” 

‘‘And now,” she said to Amout, “ if the woman is lying on 
her couch, as your aunt Suzanna teUs us, go up-stairs and 
fetclL her down this moment, in the same way as you carried 
her up.” 


CHAPTER IX. 

WHO COOKS A PRETTY KETTLE OF FISH. 

“ He shall not do it,” said Suzanna, before Arnout could 
make up his mind. “ Sister, where is your sense of delicacy ? 
I am ashamed of you. Are these city manners ? ” 

The last words, an echo of many former combats, were un- 
necessary and unwise. 

“ City manners ! ” echoed Mevrouw, bristling up and unseat- 
ing Bijou altogether ; “ and what else do you think the lady 
up-stairs — always supposing her to be a lady — ^has been accus- 
tomed to ? Do you think she has been asleep in a village aU 
her life, with a lot of Dutch boors ? She wOl be glad enough 
to meet a reasonable woman, and I insist upon her being given 
the chance ! ” 

This tone always silenced Suzanna effectually, but it silenced 
her with the resolve to hold out. Men speak of the dangers 
of attack from a woman’s tongue. They are great, undoubt- 
edly. But it is not till she retreats within the stronghold of 
her dumbness that her power becomes terrible indeed. And 
Suzanna was a match for her sister Barssehus. 

“ I forbid Arnout to go,” she said quietly. 

, “ Oh, of coiu’se,” cried the widow, “ and send for the younk- 


WHO COOKS A PRETTY KETTLE OF PISH. 


3P 

er^s niu’se, and scold her for forgetting to put the cotton wool 
in his ears ! And don’t let the dear child go out walking, for 
fear it should see the cows.” 

“Annemarie, you are indecent,” cried Suzanna — a pale flush 
over her pinched face. “ I am sure that every person of feel- 
ing would agree with me.” • 

“ The Doming does ! ” interrupted the widow. “ Don’t you, 
Domine ? You clergy have the secret of the improper ! You 
cultivate its different shades, like a gardener his roses. Ex- 
plain about it to Dorothy, do ! ” 

“ Thank you, Mevrouw,” cried Dorothy with some spirit. “ I 
am quite able to distinguish for myself.” 

“ Hoity-toity ! In my time girls were not so eager to own 
to their knowledge of both sides of the question. Then you, 
Mejuffer, have the good sense to bid dear Arnout obey me, in 
your own interest, as weU as in his.” 

“I certainly consider,” remarked Jakob gravely, “if my 
opinion be asked, that this conversation is both unseemly and 
unprofitable. Miss Suzanna’s invalid guest has a double 
claim to the first privilege of hospitality — repose.” 

“ But your opinion is not asked, right reverend sir,” cries 
the Widow Barssehus with the inconsequence of anger, “ nor 
do I care for it or for anybody else’s. I have an opinion of 
my own, thank Heaven, and power to enforce it. And Arnout, 
who is dying for another meeting with the charmer, goes up- 
stairs to her this moment in spite of Miss Varelkamp’s anxiety 
to spoil the sport.” 

Suzanna placed herself in front of the door. “ He shaU not 
go,” she said. “ He shall not take that woman in his arms 
again — unnecessarily — ^with me and Dorothy to look on.” 

“ And I say he shall,” stamped the widow, “ or I don’t come 
to this house again in a twelvemonth, and I alter my will to- 
night. Mind that, Arnout — and you, Dorothy ! ” 

All this storm in a tea-cup had raged round young Oostrum, 
standing white and silent, with a rising fury in his breast. 
What were these women — ay, what even was his aunt Suzanna ? 
— to discuss his young heart between them and to analyze its 
rights and wrongs ? What was Jakob to “ give his opinion ” 
on so sacred a subject ! Oh, the shame of it, the indecency. 


40 


AN OLD ILVID'S LOVE. 


the insult — ^with that innocent girl stjfnding by ! He recoiled 
equally from the one old woman’s piuity — ^pnidity — and from 
the other old woman’s vulgar innuendoes. And why should he 
not, if so he chose, or if so it were convenient, take any 
human creature in his arms and carry her to the end of the 
world ? And how should one woman dare to grin, if he did 
so, or the other dare, worse still, to blush ? His soul was very 
wroth within him, not so much for his own sake, perhaps, as 
for Dorothy’s. He felt as if the girl were being struck in his 
presence, and his rash young spirit sprang forward to defend 
her. ^ 

“ I can judge for -myself what is fitting,” he said hotly ; 
“ nor is there anything proper or improper in the whole 
matter. Aunt Annemarie. If the lady asks me to help her 
down-stairs, I can do so, but I shall certainly wait till she 
asks.” 

“ Child,” replied the widow with a grin, “ don’t be imper- 
tinent — at least, not to me. Your aunt Suzanna must look 
out for herself ; but for your own sake and Dorothy’s you 
must be amiable to me.” 

“And I refuse,” continued Amout still more hotly, “ to allow 
you to couple Miss van Donselaar’s name in this manner with 
mine. What business have you to drag her into the discus- 
sion at all ? What business have you to assume that she is 
interested in my future, or that she asks for a share in your 
money ! Keep your money, and, when you are dead 

“Arnout ! ” cried Suzanna, not without a certain glow of 
satisfaction. 

“ Hold your tongue and let the boy speak,” fiared up the 
widow. “ He is as angry with you as with me, I can teU you, 
Suze. Well, insolence, what next?” 

Arnold had started up and was pacing'the room with rapid 
strides. He stopped — at as great a distance from them aU as 
the limited space would allow. “ I have no intention of being 
mde to anybody,” he said deliberately, “ but I cannot help con- 
sidering such conversation as that of this moming an insult 
to Miss van Donselaar. Never mind the Frenchwoman, but 
you have no right. Aunt Annemarie, to suppose any connection 
between me and any young lady, least of aU in that young 


WHO COOKS A PRETTY KETTLE OF FISH. 


41 


lady’s presence. You have done so repeatedly lately; you 
have done so again to-day. And you place me under the pain- 
ful obhgation ” 

“You are making speeches, Arnold,” interrupted the fat 
widow hastily, “ and they are rather tiresome. Leave off, and 
fetch the pretty papist down.” 

“I am not making a speech,” said Amout, still quietly. 
“ And at any rate, this is the peroration. Miss Donselaar ” — 
and then there came a faint tremble into his voice — “ I am 
going to ask you to be my wife. I don’t expect you,” he went 
on hurriedly, “ to answer me. I know I have as yet no right 
to speak to you on the subject.” At this juncture Bijou got 
mixed up between the young fellow’s legs. He kicked the dog 
fiercely aside, and as that injured animal fied howling to its 
mistress, he poured forth his words with the greater rapidity. 
A bell rang up-stairs ; but nobody heeded that. 

“ Hush ! Don’t say anything. Let me speak. You will 
give me the answer when you think fit, or — or — your father. 
Only you hear that I have asked you, and you hear, Tante 
Suze, and you, Tante Annemarie. And you, Jakob, you hear 
also, mind you, after listening to my aunt aU the morning. 
And now, if afterwards, when I am ready and old enough to 
support you, we do not marry. Aunt Barssehus will know, and 
Jakob win know, and everybody, that it was not I who refused 
the match, but Miss — ^but you, Dorothy. I have done my 
speech, thank you. Aunt Barsselius, and I’m awfully sorry you 
obliged me to make it — Good heavens ! I don’t mean that,” 
continued the young feUow in great distress. “ I mean, Doro- 
thy, I’m so sorry you had to listen to it just now. And I’m 
quite sure I love you, and so I have a right to ask you, only I 
never should have done it if it hadn’t been for my aunts, and 
Jakob.” 

Once more the up-stairs beU pealed through the silence of 
the little house. 

“ Thank you, Nout,” said Dorothy, almost inaudibly. But 
he caught the words, and the familiar abbreviation — the pet 
name, suddenly di-awn up out of the obhvioh of their cluld- 
hood — told liiin more than her downcast eyes had dared ex- 
press. That is to say, it told him that she was gi’ateful to him 


I 


42 AN OLD IVIAID’S LOVE. 

for his delicacy of feeling, and that she understood his motive 
and appreciated it. And he wondered whether, some day 
perhaps, she would accept him. And he thought how sweet 
and good she looked with that bar of light from the half- 
closed sun-blinds across her braided hair. 

Then nobody spoke for a moment. And then the young 
minister rose up in his corner and limped forward towards 
his friend and silently shook his hand. 

All this is very pretty and very romantic,” said the rich 
widow’s shrOl cackle, “ and we shall see what Dorothea’s father 
says. And you remind me of Don Quixote, Arnout, and I 
dare say I should not have objected. But you deliberately 
kicked Bijou, which shows you are a far greater brute than . 
you imagine. And that I shall never forgive you ! Mark 
my words. I shall never forgive you that. Now, bring down 
the Frenchwoman. That was an interesting little scene ; but 
it has lasted quite long enough. And what does Dorothea in- 
tend to answer ? ” 

“ Miss Donselaar,” burst in Aanout, “ wiU not answer any- 
thing till she thinks fit to do so. In no case wiU she answer 
to-day.” 

“ Tush ! ” cried the old woman, veering round with the 
rapidity of obstinacy. “ Come, DoUy, the boy is not a bad 
boy, though he shall rwever have a penny from me ; and, be- 
sides, I intend to live to be a hundred. Now, what do you say ? ” 

“Peace, Annemarie,” spoke Miss Varelkamp imperiously. 
“We have done mischief enough for to-day.” 

Before Mevrouw Barsselius could retort, the door was 
thrown open by Mejuffrouw Varelkamp’s Betje, who burst 
into the room in immediate explanation of her own unmistak- 
able knock. For that was Betje’s way of demanding ad- 
mittance. 

Her expression was discontented, and her whole manner 
betokened a grievance. The grievance, by-the-bye, was 
Madame de Mongelas. 

“ She’s ringing, and she’s calling,” began the aggrieved dam- 
sel, without any fomial introduction, “ and Heaven only knows 
what gibberish she’s talking. And I ask you what’s the use of 
speaking a language that nobody can understand ? ” 


WHO COOKS A PRETTY KETTLE OF PISH. 


43 


Betje regarded the company triumphantly, her arms akimbo. 
She evidently considered she had propounded a poser. 

“ Shut the door, Betje,” said Suzanna angrily, “ and leave 
the room.” 

“ I can’t do that, Mejuffrouw, begging your pardon,” retorted 
Betje, unabashed, “ leastways not as long as I’ve a mortal frame. 
I must obey my masters, as the Bible says, and nobody more 
willing, but not conundrums, — no. And, if I shut the door, 
you won’t hear her calling, and that’s what she told me on pm’- 
pose to open it for.” 

Indeed, even while the handmaid was holding forth, a voice 
could be heard calling from up-stairs — a silvery voice that 
rang out like a peal of bells. “ But mount, then, monsieur,” it 
said ; “ you are too cruel. Mount, then, and bring me down to 
share your circle. I kill myseK here with ennui.” 

A look of defiance, of amusement, of triumph — injured in- 
nocence virtuously victorious — flashed into Amout’s eyes. 
He bounded past his aunts without a word ; he rushed up the 
stairs, four steps at a time, and he was down among them 
again in another moment, carrying in his arms a wonderful 
little mass of pink muslin and lace, from which the same laugh- 
ing voice came forth in ripples. “ But, be careful then. Oh, 
you are careful, only I am so foohsh. I am frightened, be- 
yond all things, of doing myself injury. Thank you, you are 
so kind. I am ungrateful. Ah, it does one good to be here.” 

She lay back on the hard, old-fashioned sofa on which he 
had placed her ; she lay back with her beautiful head half hid- 
den by the lace of her “ matinee.” Dorothy’s clear grey eyes 
looked into hers, and she smiled back upon them. “ I heard 
you laughing and talking down here,” she said, “ and I was 
dying to join you. My, leg wOl hurt less, if you will talk to 
me. You must introduce me to these ladies, madame.” 

“ I knew I should have my way,” said Mevrouw Barssehus. 


44 


AN OLD THAID’S LOVE. 




CHAPTER X. 

PUNCTUALITY AND THE PARAGON, 

“ Is dinner to be kept hot for the Juffrouw, Mynheer ? ” said 
Piet, as he removed the soup, • 

“You are new to your place,” rephed Mynheer van Don- 
selaar, “or yon would not have asked the question.” And 
Mynheer van Donselaar rubbed his thin hands together and 
smiled a self-satisfied smile. Karel and Koos, the two sons of 
the house, looked across at each other and smiled furtively 
also. 

Had the king liimself been staying at Steenevest, he would 
either have partaken of dinner at five o’clock precisely or not 
have partaken of it at all. For pimctuahty was Mynlieer van 
DonselaaPs “ whole duty of man.” In the days when he was 
making his money — and eveiy penny of it had been made by 
himself, as a coffee-merchant on the Amsterdam Exchange — 
this precision had been the means to an end, but now that 
the end was obtained, the means had remained and become 
object in their turn. Having nothing more to do with his 
time. Mynheer van Donselaar constituted himself an absolute 
slave of the clock, and filled up his too plentiful spare mo- 
ments by that painfully accurate attention to the exact stage 
of the hour which is only to be found in very idle persons. It 
is those who do nothing who are usually most anxious to know 
exactly how late they are doing it. 

Baffled by his clocks, and lacking the patience of a Charles 
the Fifth, Mynheer had had a sundial constructed on his prem- 
ises with the utmost attainable accuracy. But he had for- 
gotten one thing — that the sun only rarely shines in Holland, 
where three hundred of the three hundred and sixty-five days 
of the year are wet, and that a sundial therefore is as practi- 
cally useless in that country as a bicycle in the desert. At 
long intervals he obtained an opportunity of verifying his 


PUNCTUALITY AND THE PARAGON. 


45 


computations, and it was a strange siglit to see his lank figure 
come rushing out of the house, chronometer in hand, as soon 
as a ray of watery sunlight crept forth between the clouds. 
He would sit by the window for hours together, and his face 
would gi-ow longer, and his temper shorter, through the steady 
downpom- of a Dutch summer. Poor man ! He had counted 
the sundial among his possessions for several years, and he 
was still striving to reckon out to a second its divergences from 
railway-time and from his watch. The worst of it all was 
that, in default of the simdial, the whole household had to 
regulate itself by Mynheer van DonselaaPs watch, and that 
this authority itself was by no means beyond httle iiTeg- 
ularities. With that obstinacy which only a fine fuU-gi’own 
hobby can develop. Mynheer van Donselaar refused to pai-t 
with the old-fashioned time-keeper which his father had given 
hun some forty years ago. He wound it up every evening at 
half -past ten precisely, and he believed in it aU through the 
day. He believed in it, and throughout its conflicts with the 
dial he had a sneaking desire to take its part. One of his 
chief reasons for constructing the latter macliine had been his 
anxiety to prove his old watch infaUible ; and now, when the 
two fell out, he would shake his head at the new-comer with 
half -regretful reproach. He was not quite so certain, after all, 
that his father's watch did not know best. 

“ Why not teU us exactly how late it is, instead of always 
teUing us it is too late,” grumbled Karel, the elder son. But 
he grumbled sotto voce, and he did not permit himself even 
such hmited opposition before he came to man’s estate. Myn- 
heer van Donselaar was not accustomed to any opposition 
from anybody. He had been a paragon all his life, and he 
had taken care that on this subject, as well as on all others, 
every one who came into contact with him should know and 
shoidd share his opinion. When his father died suddenly 
and left the affairs of “ Donselaar & Sons, coffee-brokers,” in 
sad confusion, young twenty-year-old Diederik at once took 
the management of matters into his own hands, sending his 
incapable elder brother about his business, which had never 
by any means been the firm’s. He supported his mother and 
liis seven sisters with relentless propriety, making the old 


46 


AN OLD MAID'S LOVE. 


woman’s life a burden to her by his tacit air of injured in- 
nocence, and maiTying out aU her daughters without any con- 
sideration of their personal predilections. By the time he 
was thirty-five the whole thing was over. The mother had 
found rest by the side of her bankrupt husband, beyond the 
reach of her respectable son’s reproachful honesty; the 
daughters had settled down in their families as best they 
could, most of them fairly contented with the ehgible con- 
sorts their worthy brother had procured for them, and glad, 
in any case, to be out of the way of that relative’s benefactions. 
And then the model son became a model husband. He 
offered his hand to a tunid httle cousin who had been the ad- 
miring spectator of liis virtue since her childhood ; and she, too 
frightened to refuse him, accepted, and never quite recovered 
from her fright. She obeyed him with heart and soul and 
body ; and, when she could no longer continue so arduous a 
task, she did what she knew to be her duty — she died. She 
thought everything admirable that he said and did. I be- 
lieve she would have loved him, were it not that love casteth 
out fear. She could never get as high as that. But when 
he once told her — late in fife — that his heart had been another’s, 
she admired him for the confession. She felt that ff he had 
not manaed earlier, it was for the sake of those at home. In 
fact, he was virtue personified, virtue in its most satisfactory 
form of perfect self-righteousness. He had never done a 
wrong thing, or, worse stiU, a foohsh one. And, therefore, in 
the prime of his life he was able to buy a smart httle estate in 
the country, and to retire thither with his daughter Dorothy 
and his two sons. He had put the two sons into his own busi- 
ness, without stopping to inquire whether they cared for it. 
They went to and fro, and their father used them as his 
machines. God was weU pleased with him ; the world was 
weU pleased with him ; he was well pleased with himself. And 
he knew what o’clock it was. 

Why not, indeed, hang up a responsible time-piece in the 
haU and have done with it? That would. have simplified 
matters beyond endurance, and, besides, the hall clock — for of 
course there was a hall clock — ^had allowed itself too inexcus- 
able hberties in the very face of Mynheer van Donselaar’s 


PUNCTUALITY AND THE PAEAGON. 


47 


clu’onometer to enable him to confer upon it any official aii- 
thonty. In one word, Mynheer van Donselaar knew what 
o’clock it was, and everybody else in the household must find 
out as best he could what o’clock Mynheer van Donselaar 
knew it to be. 

Dorothy’s father had plenty more fusses and fancies. 
Some of them are hardly worth mentioning ; some of them the 
patient reader will find out for himself. His articles on the 
culture of roses, are they not written in “ The Netherlands 
Gardener ; ” and was it not he who worked out in three letters 
to the Utrecht Courant that marvellous system of poor rehef 
in Java which would have resulted in every Javanese doing 
his duty — and paying his duty — to the glory of the Dutch 
fatherland and the enrichment of the coffee-brokers ? He had 
the letters framed and glazed, sohdly framed, and they hung 
in his “ study,” where he sat, watch in hand, among his re- 
ports of the Chamber of Commerce and files of the Com- 
mercial Gazette, waiting for the sun to creep out across the 
dial. 

Dorothy had been staying, as we have seen, with the Widow 
Barsselius. She was to have returned by the 4.45, and the 
4.45 had not brought her. Enough, in itself, to distm-b the 
equanimity of her father, even if that gentleman had not 
walked to the httle tram-station, an eighth of a mile, to wel- 
come her. Not that Mynheer van Donselaar especially cared 
for his only daughter. What heart he had, and he had a sort 
of heai-t — nonsense, we aU have, even the paragons — what 
heart he had was given up to his eldest son, Karel, the “ tree- 
bearer,” as we say in Holland, a young fellow of one and 
twenty, and most hke his father in face and form. “ But I 
never let him do as he Hkes,” said Mynheer van Donselaar. 
“ It is the curse of om* age, that the young people are allowed 
to do as they hke ! ” 

Allowed to do as they liked ! WeU, perhaps Mynheer van 
Donselaar was right. Certainly it cannot be denied that the 
relation between fathers and their gi’own-up sons is nowadays 
chiefly a question of allowance. To Karel Donselaar* his 
father was the principal of the firm, and in so far, if no fur- 
ther, that pi*incipal was to him a matter of interest, 


48 


AN OLD JIAID’S LOVE. 


Good heavens ! is this serious chronicle dropping into pun- 
ning ? Are we to lose our “ local color ” by attempts at a joke ? 
Mynheer van Donselaar had never in all Ms life come into col- 
hsion with wit or humor in any foirm. They were not respect- 
able, and to be avoided, hke other hght things — light women, 
for instance, and hght trousers and hght wines. A good 
joke would have imined a stronger man even than Mynheer 
van Donselaai* on the “Bourse” at Amsterdam, for “joker” 
is one of the crueUest epithets a solemn Dutchman can bestow. 

Karel Donselaar sat at Ms father’s sohd dinner-table and 
scowled across at Koos. There was not much love lost be- 
tween the brothers. You could not bring any positive charge 
agamst Koos, but he was not as absolutely rehable as the 
other gentlemen of the family. He was conscious of vague 
yearnings after the vamties of the city, and, although Ms father 
took care they should remain unsatisfied, yet there was some- 
thing discreditable in the fact of a young merchant hankering 
after the theatre and the concei’t-room. Koos was musical, 
and — ^hke Amout Oostram — he loved Ms violin. There was 
no harm in playing the fiddle, but there ^vas harm in playing 
it so weU. “ The man who turns Ms play into work,”' said 
Mynheer van Donselaar, “ will very soon turn Ms work mto 
play.” 

Koos was only eighteen, poor fellow ! a year younger than 
Dorothy ; he would out-grow Ms httle failings in tune. His 
health was not strong, and he had a gentle look in his pale- 
blue eyes which had belonged to Ms mother before him, and 
wMch was very much out of place in that grim old warehouse 
on the “ Canal of the Roses.” They call their canals after 
roses and Mies in Amsterdam, as the Greeks spoke tmiidly of 
the Euxine Sea. 

Need it be added that Dorothy adored her younger brother, 
squandering on him aU the tenderness which she could not 
get rid of to any one else ? Tenderness was not a marketable 
article at Steenevest. 

“ I wonder,” said Koos, “ whether anything has happened to 
Dorothy.” 

“Happened!” remarked Karel. “What should happen? 
Old Mother Barsselius has missed the train. If I betted — 


PUNCTUALITY AND THE PARAGON. 


49 


which I don’t — I would lay yon a rix-thaler that they turned 
up at the station in time to see it go off.” 

“ K I betted — ^which I don’t,” was a favorite expression with 
Karel van Donselaar. It was the next best thing to a wager, 
and it had the advantage at the same time of clearly enunciat- 
ing the speaker’s repugnance to aU hazardous ventures. It 
may seem that the expression itself sounded “ horsey.” Ah 
weU, we must aU be young in our day, even Amsterdam coffee- 
brokers, and the phrase was Kai’el Donselaai’’s one pubhc at- 
tempt at dissipation. 

“ I regret that your sister should be exposed to so evil an 
example,” said the old gentleman. “Mevrouw Barssehus is 
an excellent woman — undoubtedly excellent — but, like most 
of her sex, she has yet to learn the value of time.” 

“ Dorothy wdl have enjoyed the change,” said Koos. His 
voice hngered over the word “ enjoyed.” 

“ Your sister alone is to blame,” answered the father. “ It 
should be impossible for Mevrouw Barssehus to arrive too 
late, where Dorothy knew we were expecting her.” 

“ But it takes a good deal to influence the old lady,” pleaded 
Koos ; “ in fact, you know she always does exactly what she 
hkes, father. She is the only person in the world who buhies 
Juffrouw Varelkamp.” 

“And even she wouldn’t buUy that old witch, if it weren’t 
for her dollars,” sneered Karel. 

Mynheer van Donselaar drummed his fingers sharply on the 
table. He did not approve of the expression. Had it been 
Koos who used it, he would have told him so. 

Koos was staring dreamily at Dorothy’s vacant place. How 
tiresome the old-fashioned room looked with its green cur- 
tains and heavy mahogany furniture ! How dull the sohd 
dinner was ! He wondered to himself, for the hundredth 
tune, whether Karel really liked them. The wine was good, 
ceriainly ; but Koos did not care for wine. 

Karel did, he believed. However, Mynheer van Donselaar 
only allowed two glasses, and these he poured out himself. 

Life at Steenevest was only bearable, thought Koos, when 
Dorothy was at home. Fortunately, her departm'es were few 

and of brief duration ; fortunately for him, and for her also, 
4 


50 


AN OLD JIAID’S LOVE. 


iji 

the persons whom she visited were not possessed of very overi 
powering attractions. She was often almost glad to get back. 

I wish she were home,” said Koos. ' 

“So do I,” assented Karel. “We shall Dear aU about the 
Frenchwoman as soon as she turns up. That woman has 
been staying at the Varelkamps for little less than a week. 
And they say she is there still.” 

“ I might go down to the half-past five tram, father,” con- 
tinued Koos, without heeding his elder brother. “ If Dorothy, 
rwas late at the station, she wilL come by that.” Deviation i 
from previous an’angements was so unusual in that methodical 
household that the very idea of his sister’s non-arrival made 
the foolish young feUow uneasy. 

“ Koos ! ” said his father in his very sternest accents. The 
boy’s temeriD'' amazed him. “ I forbid you to leave the table. 
It appears to me that the servant’s evil example is contagious.-, 
If Dorothea prefers to travel during meal times, that is no 
reason why my dinner should be disturbed.” ! 

“ What a fool my father is ! ” thought the elder sou, as he 
bent over his plate. Said the younger to himself : “ "V^at a 
brute ! ” 


CHAPTER XI. 

GRAPES, SOUR AND SWEET. 

“ Can I help you ? ” said a well-known voice, as the train 
stopped at the little Wyker station. 

What could Dorothy do ? Her hands were full of parcels. 
It was raining heavily, and the miserable little village station 
is so constructed, with considerable ingenuity, as to give youi 
a maximum of wading through uncovered slush. It was 
wet ; it was late ; she felt flurried by her previous misfortune. 
And there stood Amout Oostrum, umbrella in hand. 

“You ought not to speak to me, Arnout,” she said severely. 
“ You make me very imcomfortable.” But she put her hand in 
his, as she said it, and he helped her to alight. 

“We shall not be alone in the tram,” he answered hmnbly. 


GRAPES, SOUR AND SWEET. 


51 


“ and I might have had twenty minutes’ tete-d-tete already had 
I chosen. I saw you getting into this compartment at Utrecht, 
and I ” He stumbled over his own thoughts and paused. 

“And you preferred to smoke,” she said, with a woman’s in- 
consistency. She laughed into his eyes, laughed at his con- 
fusion — and at her own happiness, perhaps. 

“ Yes,” he rephed savagely. “ I like smoking and drinking. 
It’s aU I’m good for, you know.” 

He was guiding Dorothy from puddle to puddle, screening 
her and her parcels as weU as he could against the pelting 
down-pour. But aU the time he carefuUy protected a httle 
wicker basket which he had Drought with nim from the 
town. 

“Awd flirting with pretty Frenchwomen,” said Dorothy de- 
^ murely. She thought, poor little thing ! that she could say it 
so safely ; but next moment she recognized that she had gone 
- too far. 

Arnout’s face flushed angrily. “ You have no right to say 
that,” he cried, “nor anything Kke it. You know nothing 
about it. You have never even seen us together since that 
first day when you came with my aunt.” 

“ Foohsh fellow ! ” thought Dorothy. “As it 1 should say 
it if I knew I had a right to ! ” But she only remarked aloud : 
“ Of course I was joking, Amout. Shall I hold that little bas- 
ket, while you put my box into the tram ? ” 

Amout blushed even more angrily, while he did as she 
ordered him. There were two or three people in the car 
whom she knew sufficiently to bow to, and it was to break a 
silence that she felt was becoming ridicidous that she said, as 
the tram ghded away from the station — 

“Your aunt Barsselius is coming to see you again, the day 
' after to-morrow. She will give Miss Varelkamp no rest tfll 
she has stolen the viscountess away from her.” 

“ The viscountess,” muttered Amout with a scowl, “ can stay 
as long as she hkes, and she can go away when she chooses.” 

“Would you really hke her to go?” asked Dorothy mis- 
chievously. She was a "woman. She could not help herself. 

“ Yes,” he said between his clenched teeth. He clutched the 
. little basket tightly as he said it. He spoke "with such unneces- 


52 


AN OLD IVIAID'S LOVE. 


saiy energy, that her fair face clouded for a moment, and she 
hastened to change the subject. 

“ I missed the dinner-train,” she said ; I shall get into a 
teri’ible scrape with my father, I fear. You know he cannot 
bear us to be unpunctual. But it was all your aunt’s fault, 
and not mine. She would persist in driving round by ‘ Sel- 
dery’s ’ to get a box. of hot-house grapes for your invalid. I 
told her we had started too late.” 

‘‘ To get what ! ” asked Arnout impatiently. ' 

“ Grapes. She said they would remind Madame de Mon- 
gelas of her own country. Grapes in June ! It sounds rather 
extravagant, doesn’t it ? And they were three florins a pound. 
But you know, when your aunt has an idea in her head, she 
usually manages to get her own way.” 

Dorothy,” said Amout, “ you remember what I said to you 
the other day — ^the last time I saw you — before them all! 
You haven’t forgotten!” 

She did not answer for a moment. Perhaps she could not. 
The steam-tram was rushing along between the gaunt lines 
of melancholy trees under the plashing rain. It was dark in- 
side, and stuffy, by the false hght of a dii’ty petroleum lamp 
in the lessening day. The couple of passengers at the other 
end of the faded crimson cushions were half asleep. He bent 
forward, stiU grasping the little basket and his dkpping um- 
brella, and holding them away from her. 

“ You have no right to speak to me like that,” she burst out 
at length, angrily. You have no right to speak to me at aU. 
I told you so before, at the station ! My father does not know 
yet. Nobody knows. I am not to answer. You have put me 
a question, and at the same time you have told me not to 
answer it. I cannot answer it. I should not know how. And 
until I know how, and until you expect me to teU you, you 
have no right to speak to me at all. Let me pass, if you 
please, Arnout. I am going to stand outside, if you please.” 
She had risen as she spoke, and had turned her back on the 
people in the far corner that they might neither hear her voice 
nor see her face. She was bitterly angry with the young fel- 
low before her. 

“ You cannot go out into the rain, Dorothy,” he said, and 


GRAPES, SOUR AND SWEET. 


53 


she thought he said it coolly. “ I am very sorry. I beg your 
pardon. I did not mean to offend you. Sit down.’' 

“Let me pass,” she repeated in an agitated manner. 
“You are insulting! You are cowardly, ArnOutl Let me 
pass I ” 

And she swept by him, and went and stood out on the little 
platform, where the driving rain could beat upon her burning 
face. What does a Dutch girl care for rain, if it cannot hurt 
her clothes ? 

Presently she came back to put her parcels together, for 
i they were approaching the little “halt” near Steenevest. The 
house stood down a side lane, at a few minutes’ walk from the 
main road. The tram drew up. Dorothy looked out into the 
gathering darkness. There was nobody there to fetch her. 
The rain came down in torrents, and the puddles of the strag- 
I ghng lane lay shimmering between the steaming fields. It 
was gloomy and miserable and forlorn. 

“ You must allow me,” said Aimout quietly, almost timidly. 
He helped her out with her parcels, and then he jumped from 
the tram-car himself. 

“ Oh, don’t ! ” she cried, stricken with sudden penitence. “ I 
can very weU run down the lane by myself. You mustn’t lose 
your place, Arnout. You will have to walk half an hour in 
the rain ! ” 

His only answer was a wave of the hand to the guard. 
Then he tm-ned off the road, with a box and a bag of hers in 
one hand. In the other he held his umbrella over her head, 
and at the same time he grasped his precious little basket. 
Thus laden like a pack-horse he strode down the lane. He 
was haunted by a longing to turn up his light-colored trousers, 
but he felt that the action would be incongruous, and he de- 
sisted with regret. 

“ You had better take my arm,” he presently said, still very 
mildly. “ You won’t get so wet.” And she humbly obeyed — 
very angry with him stOl, but touched by the thought of how 
wet he would be ere he got home — for her sake ! 

The short lane seemed interminable ; the increasing darkness 
lay upon her like an accusation of guilt ; the very rain felt like 
a sorrowful reproach. She must say something. “ What are 


54 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


you taking home so carefully to your Aunt Suzanna ? ” she 
asked. “ Eggs f ” 

No answer. 

Another embarrassing sUence. Dorothy was deeply offended 
at his rudeness. “ I shall not say another word to him,” she 
thought to herself. 

Then, suddenly, “ Grapes for Madame de Mongelas. There ! ” 

She thought he was joking. But she was only the more 
offended. “ Indeed ! ” she said shortly. And then she splashed 
right into a puddle, in her confusion and her disdain. 

“ Yes,” he went on. “ It sounds rather extravagant, doesn’t 
it ? Grapes in June ! And they are stid three florins a pound 
— only these cost thi’ee fifty.” (Oh, the child! the child!) 

But, you know, when one gets an idea into one’s head, one 
likes to have one’s way. And I thought they would remind 
her of France.” 

“ That was very considerate of you,” said Dorothy, with that 
air which the French caU “ pinched.” “ You are always very 
considerate, Arnout, and it was kind of you to help me through 
the rain. I should have .asked you to wait for your aunt 
Barssehus’s grapes — ^they are in my box — ^but you will hardly 
want them now, as you have got some of your own. I shall 
send them over to Miss Suzanna to-morrow. Thank you, once 
more ; here we are at the gate. Good-bye.” 

She made him a little curtsey, as she finished speaking, and 
held out her hand for her parcels. 

“ I may as well carry them up to the door,” he began, with 
that cool manner which had already so ii’ritated her. 

But she interrupted him with an imperious gesture. “ Give 
me the things,” she cried, “ and leave me in peace ! Good- 
night.” 

“ Good-night, then,” he said ; “ and God bless you ! Good- 
bye.” 

And he turned and left her, walking swiftly down the road. 

“Good-night, Ainout,” she called after him once more — 
through the rain, and the darkness, and the gathering sadness 
of their hearts. 

But he did not answer. He passed on along the deserted 
road, alone with his thoughts, alone with the little wicker- 


DOROTHY ASKS A QUESTION AND RECEIVES AN ANSWER. 55 


basket and its precious contents. Presently it seemed to him 
as if he could bear its company no longer. It was speaking 
to him, perhaps, and he did not like the burden of its remarks. 
And yet it went on speaking. 

He stopped in the middle of the road. To the right and 
left a steaming sea of vapor across the meadows. In front 
and behind two endless lines of diipptng trees beneath a sink- 
ing sky. No human creature in sight. 

Not so. Some one was splashing methodically along the 
road, a dark spot against the grey damp in the distance — a 
laboring man under a big umbrella. ^ 

“Good-evening, friend,” said Arnout. “Would you hke 
some grapes that I don’t care to carry any further ? ” 

The peasant stopped his slouching trudge. He thought the 
other was laughing at him, and he was very careful, like all 
j peasants, about being laughed at. “I like grapes,” he said 
i slowly ; “ oh yes, young master, I don’t mind grapes.” 

“ Take them,” said Amout, holding out his basket. “ Per- 
; haps you know some sick person to whom they will be welcome.” 

“I don’t know any sick person,” answered the peasant, stiU 
I in the same slow way. “ I’ll eat them myseK, young master.” 
j , Amout broke away without further parley. He looked 
down at his clothes and saw that they were fuU of mud. He 
i had ruined them. The stupidity of the thought at that 
, moment threw him into a frenzy of anger and disgust, and he 
tore down the road hke a madman, crying out to himself 
aloud that he was a vhlain as weh as a fool ! 

But all the time, in his heart of hearts, he considered him- 
self an injured saint. 


CHAPTER XII. 

DOROTHY ASKS A QUESTION AND RECEIVES AN ANSWER. 

The haU door was never locked thl half-past ten o’clock pre- 
cisely. The far chime from the village steeple mingled even- 
ing after evening in the ears of the occupants of the house 


56 


AN OLD SIAID'S LOVE. 


with the grating of the door-key. Mynheer van Donselaar 
always locked that door himself. 

Dorothy let herself in, her mantle making a terrible drip 
around her on the white marble with which the Dutch decorate 
their entrance-halls. Nobody there. A sustained droning 
from behind the study-door. Koos reading out his nightly 
coffee-report to his father. 

She crept up-stairs to her room, a maidenly little room, all 
pale chintz and pink roses. Her mother’s portrait in the place 
of honor, the large one which her father had given her on the 
birthday succeeding their loss. A painful portrait, not be- 
cause of that sad look in the eyes — she had never known her 
mother otherwise — ^but because of the continual recollection 
which it brought her of the one occasion when her father’s 
kiss had conveyed a message of affection. He pecked her 
cheek regularly, morning and evening, at half -past eight and 
at half-past ten. 

She sat down for a moment among her little belongings, and 
noticed how the house-maid had arranged them aU awiy. 
They were presents, chiefly, from her brothers and from 
fiaends at school — a china shepherdess, an inkstand with 
“Gruss aus Wiesbaden,” two uncouth bears from Benie. 
An old Bohemian glass held a mass of white hlacs ; that was 
Koos’s doing. He must have bought them. Nobody but the 
head-gardener might gather flowers at Steenevest. 

Dorothy’s heart softened at the thought of her young 
brother. It was very bitter stfll, and very miserable. Need 
that be added ? When a woman’s heart is bitter, it is always 
miserable. It is only we men who can afford to hate. 

A knock came to the door, and that knock brought Koos. 
“ My father would not let me come and fetch you, DoUy,” he 
said; “I’m awfuUy sorry. What beastly weather you had! 
Who brought your things ! ” 

“ DoUy ” was the pet name which Koos bestowed upon his 
sister when they were alone. As children — ^in the time when, 
like all boys, he detested kisses — they had agreed that she 
might fine him a kiss whenever he forgot to use it. And so 
he had got into the habit. What an age ago it seemed 1 

“ I am glad you did not come, Koos,” she answered. “ It is 


DOROTHY ASKS A QUESTION AND RECEIVES AN ANSWER. 57 

no weather for young fellows with conghs. How is your 
throat ? Did you put on the cold-water compresses regularly, 
as I told you to do ? Are you better ? ” 

What could Koos say ? He had not put on the water com- 
presses. He was dehcate, and apt to take cold ; but he was 
not consumptive, as Dorothy insisted upon dreading, Nims- 
ing him was her agony, and her joy. 

“ Oh, I’m all right,” said Koos. “ And I took the thing- 
ummy, DoU. What d’ye call it ? Aconite. I took it all,” 

He had done so. A solution had been left him, to be im- 
bibed in half-hourly sips. He had swallowed down the whole 
at a gidp. But, at any rate, the tumbler was empty. And 
her soul was content. 

“ Good boy,” she said. “ I have brought you a present from 
Mevrouw Barsselius. You know you were always a prime fa- 
vorite of hers. She has sent you the old Dutch airs which 
Barends has recently arranged for the violin. I will unpack 
them for you as soon as the tram-people bring my trunk. Is 
my father very angry f ” 

“ Oh, bother ! ” began Koos impatiently, but Dorothy would 
not allow that. He knew it. She kept up the comedy of filial 
affection with a beautiful conscientiousness worthy of a better 
cause. 

“Hush,” she said. “Let us go down to him. Where is 
Karel ? Is he at home ? ” 

“Ko,” said Koos shortly. 

“ Where is he then ? ” 

“I don’t know. After no good, I fancy. It’s no business 
of mine, or of yours. Well. Let’s go down to the kitchen 
first. I told the cook to keep some dinner for you.” 

“ I am not hungry,” said Dorothy ; and the tide of her own 
affliction was borne in upon her from the depth of Koos’s as- 
tonished stare, 

“ Nonsense, DoUy ! You’ve had nothing to eat since lunch- 
eon, I’ll be bound. Since when have you given up being hun- 
giy ? Left your appetite in town ? ” 

Dorothy’s appetite, as a rule, was uncontrolled by affecta- 
tion. She laughed. It seemed too ridiculous to leave one’s 
dinner untouched because one was wroth with one’s lover. 


68 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


So they crept down to the kitchen, these two — ^very softly, 
lest their father should hear them. And Mina, the cook, who 
had been in the family fifteen years, because she had lived out 
the fii’st twelve months (a rare occurrence !) made her young 
mistress welcome and set out on the kitchen table the warmed- 
p remains of the evening meal. Motherly old Mina re- 
garded the young people more or less as her own children. 
She found the fussy tyrant up-stairs very easy to manage. 
She served him his dinners to the moment, and if he crossed 
her in any matter of importance she hinted that she was ready 
to go. ffis children could not give him warning. He bad them 
there. 

Dorothy swallowed a few morsels to please her brother and 
Mina, and then she had to give her account of the fortnight 
S’^ent in town. Wilde Koos sat kicking his feet against the 

•esser and- the old servant pottered about among her sauce- 
pans and dishes, the young mistress told how she had been to 
^je Mina’s sister, the widow who hved in the “ Walenhof,” the 
WaUoon almshouses, and how her asthma was better than it 
had been in spring. “ My sister was always up and down,” re- 
marked Mina parenthetically; '‘and there’s nothing to grow 
( 1 by hke asthma. I suppose ’tis because it saves a body’s 
breath.” The recital of the old widow’s quarrels with her pau- 
per neighbors was broken short by an imperious peal of the 
.drawing-room bell, the master’s peal. It sent the brother and 
sister up-stau’s in a flying hurry, just in time to meet the man- 
servant, Piet. “ Mynheer is asking for the Jufifrouw,” he said. 
Dorothy brushed back her hair, with a movement of the hand, 
and went in to her father. 

“A — ah,” said Mynheer van Donselaar. He was leaning 
back in his arm-chair, his shppered feet stretched out before 
him, his spectacles aslant over his pasty face and Roman nose. 
His daughter saw at a glance that he had not really been put 
out, but that he was going to amuse himself by “ shoA^g dis- 
agi-eeable.” She knew the symptoms. This was what the 
Paragon — ^with a capital P — called feehng “ not anger, but 
regret.” 

“ I am glad to perceive, by ocular demonstration, Dorothea, 
that you are returned. I should hardly have become ac- 


DOROTHY ASKS A QUESTION AND RECEIVES AN ANSWER. 59 


quainted with the fact, had I waited until you thought fit to 
inform me of it.” 

Dorothy went up to the tea-table. 

“ Oh, thank you,” said her father, “ you need give yourself 
no supei’fluous trouble. I have poured out my tea for my- 
self.” 

“ I missed the train, papa,” said Dorothea. “ I could not 
help it. Mevrouw Barssehus would not order the carriage 
earher. When you stay with people, you must do as they 
hke.” 

But Mynheer Donselaar never allowed two grievances to be 
muddled up into one. He took out his watch and he scanned 
it attentively. 

“ You came, I presume, by the eight o’clock tram. Am I 
not correct?” he said. 

“ Yes, papa. It was the first that would take my luggage.” > 

“Very well. Then, allowing seven minutes for the walk to i ^ 
the house, I still find thirty-three unaccounted for. It is now 
twenty minutes to nine.” 

“ I ran up-stairs to change my things, papa. It is pouring 
with rain. And then,” continued Dorothy, disdaining subter- 
fuge, “ I saw Koos and went with him ” 

Her father waved the hand that held his nightly newspaper. 

“ No, thank you, Dorothea. I have asked no excuses, and 
I require none. Where filial piety has not spoken, paternal 
affection may well hold its peace. But I must say that if you 
had shown due consideration for my wishes, it would have 
been impossible — I repeat, impossible — ^for Mevrouw Barsse- 
lius to cause you to miss the train.^’ 

“ I am sorry, papa,” said Dorothy wearily. “ I can say no 
more than that. There is something else — of more importance 
— I would speak to you about, if you can hsten to me.” 

“ You must allow me to finish my paper first,” said the Para- 
gon. “ I am late as it is. My whole evening has been de- 
ranged by your thoughtlessness. It is like you, Dorothea, to 
tell me that some little trumpery interest of yours is of more 
importance than the comfort of the whole family. I don’t 
speak of myself, mind, but your mother would never have said 

that. Your mother was an estimable woman, Dorothy.” 

1 


GO 


AN OLD MAID’S 


“ Indeed, papa, she must have been,” said Dorothy. It was 
aU she could do to keep the sneer of the words from breaking 
forth in her voice. She could safely have sneered at her father. 
Therein lay the danger. His ear was impervious to irony. 
And Karel, at any rate, availed himself of that circumstance, 
whenever he thought fit. 

“You must wait till I have read the paper,” continued 
M3riiheer van Donselaar querulously. “And then you can teU 
me about it, while I am having my game of ‘ Patience.' But, 
if you have bought too many dresses and overstepped your 
allowance, I would rather not hear of it, Dorothy. I waimed 
you before you went to Mevrouw Barsselius. She is wasteful, 
but she has got money to waste. I can’t give you a penny 
extra. You know it is against my rule. You must make the 
deficit good next month.” 

“ It is not money,” said Dorothy scornfully. She paced up 
and down the room, while her father finished his paper. This, 
then, was her home-coming. She had expected nothing else ; 
yet her heart rebelled at the fulfilment of its expectations. 
It felt sore all over, and she was wrathful, above all things, 
with herself for the soreness. She was not sentimental, she 
told herseK, and she detested all things maudlin, and yet here 
she was crying for a httle motherly sympathy, which she knew 
she could not get. Mevrouw Barsselius was the last person to 
offer it. She had bantered the girl all through the week^with 
her love-story, getting such rough fun out of it as made the fat 
widow’s rubicund chops shake like a jelly. It had never 
struck her that Dorothy might not rehsh the joke. 

Mynheer looked round uneasily. His daughter’s tramp dis- 
turbed his appreciation of the wise dehberations of the Amster- 
dam Town Council. And, besides, the movement seemed to 
him very unladylike. He had a horror of all things improper, 
dxcept when propriety clashed with his comfort. He did not 
mind, you see, letting his daughter come home alone in the 
rain. 

Dorothy noticed her father’s movement. She came and 
stood by the tea-table, and began washing up the cups. She 
did it mechanically, but she was a Dutch housewife. There 
was no danger that she would let one fall. 


DOROTHY ASKS A QUESTION AND RECEIVES AN ANSWER. 61 

“Well?” said Mynheer van Donselaar at length, laying 
down his paper. “And what is this important matter? We 
have still half an hour before supper-time to talk it over. 
Reach me my cards, Dorothy, if you please.” 

There was a kind ring in his voice. He had greatly im- 
proved in temper. His newspaper had agreed with him, as 
Koos was wont to say. Formerly it used to he a matter of 
anxious inquiry with the children, how papa had “ taken ” his 
paper. It smoothed him down all over, or it rubbed him up 
the wrong way. M3aiheer van DonselaaFs “ paper ” was the 
commercial intelligence, with a dash of Amsterdam small talk 
thrown in. 

Dorothy welcomed the change with a smile. She got the 
cards, though not without an uncomfortable twinge of self-re- 
proach, for it was her regular duty to read out the news to 
her father while he played his two games of “ quarante-neuf.” 
She would have surprised you by her knowledge of the prices 
of “ Java ” and “ Fine old Brazil.” The self-reproach was none 
the less disagreeable, because she felt that she had no cause 
for it. There is nothing in the world so irritating as mi- 
reasonable self-reproach. 

“ Let me teH you about it quietly, father,” she said. And 
she sat down close by his side. 

“ Yes, child, that is right,” said the father. “ Only, before 
you begin, I wish you woidd teU me, now I think of it, exactly 
what time it was at the Overstad station when you left?” 
And he brought out the abominable old watch, liis master, and 
peered anxiously into his daughter’s face. 

The girl’s heart recoiled again for a moment ; then she too 
drew forth her watch and compared it with her father’s. 
There was a difference of no less than three minutes — a great 
blow to the old gentleman — and he fussed about it, and spec- 
ulated on it, and examined the works to account for it, till 
Dorothy could stand the tension no longer, 

“ I wanted to tell you this, papa,” she said, as carelessly as 
she could, “ that Arnout Oostnim has asked me to be his wife.” 

If she had calculated on a great “ coup,” a sudden revulsion 
of feeling, she was doomed to fresh disappointment. Myn- 
heer van Donselaar slowly finished winding up his watch; 


62 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


then he held it to his ear, and gently shook it ; then he put it 
into his fob, and began wiping his spectacles. 

Neither broke the silence for a few moments. Mynheer 
van Donselaar peered sideways through his spectacles, and 
then set to polishing them with increasing energy. Dorothy 
knew neither what she hoped nor dreaded. Her one feeling 
was that her anger was kinged against Arnout, and that some- 
how it made her so miserable to be angry with him that she 
wanted comfort, and even advice. Ay, actually she felt that 
she needed advice. • 

Said Mynheer van Donselaar at length : “ I object. Abso- 
lutely and irrevocably, I object. The boy has, I consider, be- 
haved disgracefully. I shall never consent to the match.” 

Suddenly Dorothy reahzed how unprepared she had been 
for this answer. Though the subject had never been mooted 
between her and her father, it had somehow of late become a 
pretty safe possibility that Arnout would sooner or later make 
a proposition of this kind. Perhaps Mejufifrouw Varelkamp’s 
aspirations m this direction had mutely communicated them- 
selves to others. However this be, Dorothy had fancied — 
vaguely, for the whole subject had been vague to her, one on 
which she dared not allow her thoughts to rest — ^had fancied 
vaguely that her father would not make any overwhelming 
objections, that he would only oppose her wishes as long as it 
amused him to do so. But what direction would her wishes 
take ? Hush ! that was a question which it were “ sin ” to con- 
sider — as yet. 

“ I put my foot down,” said Mynheer van Donselaar. “ I 
am master in my own family. I wish you would ring, Doro- 
thea ; I cannot understand why Piet does not fetch away the 
tea-things. I request that you will never mention the subject 
again.” 

Dorothy rose, but she did not move towards the bell-rope. 
She confi’onted her father. The forbidden question was an- 
swered once for all, and on the blank page of her life the re- 
cording angel had written down the answer, and sealed it with 
her heart’s red blood. It is an answer which no woman gives 
twice, if she gives it at aU. It is an answer which, should she 
withhold it, leaves her life a meaningless voice in the void. 


DOROTHY ASKS A QUESTION AND RECEIVES AN ANSWER, 63 


That evening, for the first time in her life, Dorothea’s eyes 
blazed down revolt at her father. She towered over him in 
all the splendor of her pnrity, her loneliness, her maidenhood. 
And her heart rejoiced within her, in the midst of its miseiy, 
at the thought of his impotence to hurt her, of his powerless- 
ness to deprive her of this new-born treasure of secret delight. 
What could he do but say : You may not marry ? The thought 
of his wishing to say it, or of her desiring him to unsay it, did 
not enter her head that night. It was love she was thinking 
of, love, all-sufficient, all-resplendent, victorious and irresisti- 
ble. And her father’s “ I forbid it,” shrivelled down into a 
cruel but meaningless jest. 

She answered him veiy little. “ I love him,” she said quietly. 

You can hardly forbid me that,” And then she stopped to 
ring the bell for the tea-things, and walked out of the room. 

“ It is the spirit of the times,” said M3mheer van Donselaar 
to himself, as soon as he had recovered his breath, “ and Doro- 
thea always had a tendency towards insolence. It should have 
been whipped out of her before she was five, as I whipped it 
out of the boys. But her mother was alw^ays a ppor feeble 
creature. And feeble parents make headstrong children. I 
should never have dared to say to my father what my chiU 
dren say to me.” 

Presently, however, he smiled, a mean little smile. After 
all, the money was in his hands, and Arnout Oostrum was a 
pauper. Dorothy was just barely nineteen ; she would not be 
of age for four years, SiUy young people. He felt ruffled all 
over his methodical little soul by the idea that Arnout should 
have approached a daughter of his without his leave. A man 
who could act thus towards Mynheer van Donselaar was for 
ever unworthy of the august title of son-in-law. But no httle 
differences with Dorothy could disturb the placid repose of his 
soul, with a rise of ten per cent, in’ the coffee-market. He was 
soiTy, he told himself, to cross the girl in anything. He must 
not consider what was most agreeable, but what was his duty 
to his cliild. 

He meant it too. Most certainly he meant it. There were 
half a dozen reasons why he shoidd hesitate, and this was not 


64 


AN OLD MATD’S LOVE. 


the manner, at any rate, in which such questions deserved to 
be treated. Poor little Dorothy ! She would cool down hy to- 
morrow and ask his pardon. He must not bestow it too 
readily. 

“ T^ere is Karel ? ” he asked Koos, who came in to supper. 

“ Karel ? Up in his room, I suppose,” said Koos. 

“ Feeble parents make headstrong children.” A truism. Myn- 
heer van Donselaar. Let Koos give you another — ^he is a 
good feUow, none the less : “And tyranny is the father of hes.” 

Dorothy ran up to her room, her whole frame in a quiver of 
joyous laughter. It was wrong ; she felt it was wrong, inde- 
corous, unfeehng. But she could not help herself. Oh, the 
brightness of it, the happiness of it, the warm, the golden sun- 
hght of it ! She had been angry with Arnout Oostrum ; she 
was angry with him stiU, perhaps ; but oh, the sweetness of an 
anger from which the bitterness has passed away ! She would 
scold him when next they met ; she would scold him severely. 
No, no ; she would never dare to meet him again. She was 
frightened at the idea of meeting him. Never would she ven- 
ture to speak to him of the subject. Never would any con- 
versation be possible between them on any subject whatsoever. 

She sat down before the uncurtained window, alone with her 
happiness in the dark. The rain had ceased, and great 
masses of cloud were driving rapidly across a watery moon. 
The tumult of the stormy summer night was at discord with 
the peace within her, the peace of a heart lying anchored for 
ever in the face of coming danger. A lost moonbeam, flut- 
tering downwards, feU for a passing moment across the pen- 
sive portrait on the waU. She watched it come and go, and 
then, suddenly, silently, she sank on her knees. 


A STORM IN AN EGG-CUP. 


65 


CHAPTER XIII. 

A STORM IN AN EGG-CUP. 

“Hand me the egg, Betje,” said Mejuifroiiw Varelkamp 
sharply ; “ I can’t hear to look at you any longer. It gives me 
the fidgets. You are very stupid, Betje. You don’t even 
know how to heat up an egg.” 

“ Humph ! ” said Betje. 

“You’re as stupid as a hen,” continued Suzanna, vigor- 
ously whisking round the creamy mess in the httle howl. 
“Providence brings you an egg, and you don’t even know 
what to do with it.” 

“ I’d know quick enough,” protested Betje, “ only I never 
get a chance except on Easter Monday. And if you’d only 
huy one of those egg-whipper things that Mina has up at 
Steenevest, you’d save yourself and me a deal of trouble, 
Juffrouw. Especially when French people come into the 
house, that seem to think that God Almighty intended man 
for an omelet.” 

“Why for an omelet?” asked the Juffrouw, suddenly inter- 
ested. It was no use speaking figuratively to Mejuffrouw 
Vai’clkamp. She only understood her own similes, gi-aphic 
enough sometimes, never anybody else’s. 

“ Humph ! ” said Betje. Her mistress knew that that enig- 
matical word contained the essence of all Betje’s religion and 
philosophy, and of most of her passions and affections. She 
was a woman of little knowledge and much wisdom, and her 
silence, at any rate, was golden. Silence is always a beautiful 
thing in a woman. But it is not tOl we meet with it in a con- 
fidential maid-servant that we know what a very beautiful 
thing it can be. Betje could be silent when she chose, and 
she could also talk. Good heavens ! how she could talk ! 

She was not afraid of Miss Varelkamp, but she stood in awe 
of her undeniable virtues. She had an open eye for those vir- 
5 


66 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


tues, and secretly venerated them. And therefore — marvel- 
lous to behold — she was possessed of another quality, rare 
enough in most women, but phenomenal in a domestic serv- 
ant ; she Vas capable of occasionally admitting — at least to 
herself — that she might have been in the wi’ong. She ac- 
cepted her mistress’s not infrequent scoldings with a certain 
amount of equanunity. She accepted them the more meekly, 
if anything, when she felt them to be totally undeserved, for 
she knew that Miss Varelkamp would be certain to realize 
that fact in an hour or two, and she could tell by experience 
that there was no surer prelude to “ a good time all round ” 
than such a moment of unmerited reproach. And, after all, in 
those matters which seemed to Betje the only ones of any im- 
poi-tance here below (except the weekly doze in chm'ch), the 
routine of housework, cleaning and cookery, Juffrouw Varel- 
kamp knew what’s what, and her maid was aware that she 
did. There was not a housewife in all the country-side coidd 
make a gulden go farther than Miss Varelkamp. Guldens 
were very scarce at the cottage. Betje was proud of the use 
Miss Varelkamp made of them. She was even proud — ^with 
an intense loyalty — of their scarcity. Her own wages were 
low enough. Heaven knows. She would have been glad to 
get more, but, knowing this to be impossible, she was proud 
of earning so little. “ Our Juffrouw’s guldens,” she would re- 
mark to Arnout, “ contain a hundi*ed and twenty cents,” She 
was fond of Arnout, of com’se. He was a bit of the cottage, 
and the cottage, as a imity, was her religion. But she had 
one great objection to him. As she often told him, “he 
thought that guldens were made to melt.” 

Betje was a charity child. She had been with Miss Varel- 
kamp for thirty years, ever since she was twelve. The roses on 
her hard cheeks were several shades darker than those on her 
crisp cotton dress. On Sundays her great mob-cap was an 
imposing stmcture of white silk ribbons and lace. The sav- 
ings of her life-time had been sunk in that cap. Yet it was 
not vanity that the cap represented, but respectability. She 
abhorred “ man,” or, as she called him, “ the men.” He was 
her personification of evil, just as “our house ” was her embodi- 
ment of good. But the thing she abominated even more than 


A STORM IN AN EGG-CUP. 


67 


“ the men ” was that vanity in woman to wliich she alluded as 
“ those giddy girls/’ viz., the vanity of those things she pos- 
sessed not, the vanity of the power to please the mascnlino 
sex. And she despised luxury; she despised it in her mis- 
tress’s words, “ the God-forgetting luxury of our days.” Lux- 
ury to her meant as many eggs in a pudding as were written 
down in the cookery book. 

“ Not that I want an egg-whipper,” she said, as she stood ad- 
miringly watching her mistress for one moment. “ I could do 
it as weU without, Juffrouw, if I only had the time. But I’ve 
not the time to wait upon French papists and do aU my work 
as well.” 

“ I have heard that remark several times in the last week, 
Betje,” said the Juffrouw, cahnly heaping up the stiff foam. 
“And I have told you before that it is not devoid of truth. 
And that is why I try, as fai* as I can, to do both my own work, 
and some of yours.” 

Betje’s heart smote her. She had gone to bed an hour or 
two later during the last week. She did not know — and she 
ilid not like to guess — how much later Miss Varelkamp had 
gone. 

The stranger was a great incumbrance in the little house, 
and Betje deeply resented her presence. She hated her. But 
it was not on account of the extra work. It was on account 
of the extra expense, which she well knew Miss Varelkamp 
was not able to bear. 

Hitherto-unheard-of delicacies had been seen in the cottage 
kitchen. The doctor ordered them. The patient asked for 
them. WeU, no, she did not ask for them ; but she somehow 
signified their absence. And Betje’s spirit boUed within her 
as she cooked them. “ It goes above my understanding,” said 
Betje, “why a person’s tongue wants tickling because they 
squeeze her shins.” This was Betje’s idea of “ massage.” Al- 
ready the Frenchwoman had consumed three bottles of claret 
and half a bottle of port wine. “And of the very best,” said 
Betje, resentfuUy. This was an additional grievance, that Me- 
juffrouw Varelkamp would not buy second-rate things. Even 
for herself she would take the commonest, but the best of its 
common kind. 


68 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


And neighbor’s Com61ie was in constant attendance. Not 
that Betje objected to this. She enjoyed having a young girl 
under her to bully and educate and generally “ superintend,” 
even as Miss Varelkamp superintended her. She would make 
a perfect servant of any young girl entrusted to her care, as 

perfect a servant as Oh no j Betje was not vain. She 

was humble with that beautiful humility which dehghts in its 
own virtue, because it is not of itself. She “ thanked God and 
Mejuffrouw Varelkamp she was not like those giddy girls.” 

Neighbor’s Comehe was. Her hair was giddy — ^it frizzled ; 
and her eyes were giddy — they danced; and her nose was 
giddy — it turned up. She was giddy all over, as she came, 
skipping down the lane ; but the giddiness left her when she 
turned into Miss Varelkamp’s httle garden. They called her 
“Keetje” in Miss Varelkamp’s house. And nobody was ever 
giddy in Betje’s kitchen. They couldn’t be. 

In that kitchen Cornelie’s bright locks had to be smoothed 
under Keetje’s httle cap. It had been the conditio sine qud non 
of her engagement. And her mother, the lodge-keeper of the 
gi’eat house farther up the road, had oveiTuled Cornehe’s re- 
behious tears. She was glad enough that the child should 
learn something besides hair-curhng, a great girl of seventeen ! 
So, after weeks of anxious deliberations with herself in her 
chamber, Mejuffrouw Varelkamp announced to Betje that she 
had resolved “ to take the washing into the house,” as she said. 
She never asked advice of Betje, or talked anything over with 
her ; that was a characteristic “ unwisdom ” in the self-willed 
old woman. She arranged for herself aU the little “ unportant 
decisions” of her life. She now engaged Keetje, “and mind, 
you are to bring a clean apron, Keetje,^’ to come two days in 
the week for the sum of one gulden in aU, and her dinner. 
And then she set to teaching Betje washing, ironing, and 
starching as these arts had never been practised before. And 
Betje taught Keetje, as much as Keetje was able, or willing, 
to learn. 

Said Betje to her Juffrouw suddenly, as the latter stood, egg 
in hand, ready to leave the kitchen, “ It can’t be helped. And 
you mustn’t mind me, Juffrouw. But teU you I must.” 

Miss VareU^amp paused, and set down the large cup — her 


A STORM IN AN EGG-CUP. 


69 


father’s, with “From Friendship” on it in tai-nished gilt. 
Something in the maid’s manner frightened her. Could Betje 
he “ agitated ” ? 

“What is it, Betje?” she said. 

“ It’s just this, Jnffrouw, that I wish the girl had never come 
into the house. It’s not the girls whom you have to tell to 
wear a cap that should he taken into situations as onrs.” 

“ Has Keetje broken another of the best dishes?” asked Me- 
jutfrouw Varelkamp anxiously. 

“ There are worse things to he broken than dishes,” rephed 
Betje, shaking her head vehemently. “ ‘ Can a man take fire 
in his bosom and not be burned ? ’ The blessed Bible knows 
all about it, Juffrouw.” 

And she shut up her hps with a snap. 

“ If the creature flii*ts with the trades-people,” said Mejuff- 
rouw Varelkamp, much relieved, “you must not let her open 
the door to them.” 

“And am I to play nurse to the slattern ? ” cried the hand- 
maid in crimson indignation. “Then you’d best lock both 
doors of the kitchen. There’s young fools inside the house as 
weU as outside, Jutfi*ouw Varelkamp. And there’s those I’ve 
had on my knees when they were babies that have got be- 
yond hstening to an old woman like me.” 

Me juffrouw Varelkamp understood. Her hard old face 
grew harder, if possible, and whiter. She did not beheve a 
word of Betje’s accusation. 

“ How dare you insinuate such things ! ” she cried in great 
wrath. She took the cup up again. It trembled in her hand. 
“ My nephew ! A student of theology and a gentleman ! And 
a dirty servant-girl like — Faugh ! You are a very wicked 
woman, Betje. A very, very wicked woman ! ” And she 
stalked out of the kitchen, her gaunt figure erect, her Koman 
nose in the air. 

She had got more than half-way up the steep staircase be- 
fore she de^itely resolved in her mind to come dowm again. 
She marched back upon Betje, stiU holding out in front of her 
the yeUow mass with its protruding spoon. 

“ Produce yom* proofs,” she said j “ not that you have got 
any.” 


70 


AN OLD MAID'S LOVE. 


Betje, with two bright spots on her usually rosy cheeks, 
faced away from the hearth. “ Judgment doesn’t belong to 
me,” she said, “ and ’tis a fool that hearkeneth not to under- 
standing.” Miss Varelkamp did not wince. “But when a 
young man and a young woman walk evening after evening 
in the moonhght, then Lord have mercy on the yoimg man, 
says I. The young woman, ai*tful minx, can look after her- 
self.” 

“ Let me heai’ that again,” says Suzanna, “ distinctly. You 
said ‘ In the moonlight,’ Betje ; do you mean the lane ? ” 

“ I do,” replied Betje, solemnly setting her arms akimbo ; 

“ but I can’t say ‘ God Almighty,’ JufiEi’ouw, because it’s the 
city of the great King.” 

“ I did not ask you to,” said Suzanna sharply. “And when 
you spoke of the young man, you meant my nephew Aimout ; 
and when you spoke of the young woman, you meant” — a 
gidp — “ Keetje ? ” 

“Even so, amen,” said Betje, feeling as if she were in 
church. 

Miss Varelkamp turned without another word, and jerked 
herself up-stairs again. The expression is not an elegant one, 
but it best describes Miss Varelkamp’s movements. Rapidity 
was the old lady’s most marked characteristic, both in action 
and in thought. She hved in jerks. 

She stood in the httle lobby. “Arnout ! ” she called in her 
shiiU voice, “Amout ! ” 

Young Varelkamp was reading to Madame de Mongelas. 
He came out of the lady’s room, a yellow-covered novel in his 
hand. 

“ Come down to me immediately,” said Ins aunt. 

She led the way into the kitchen, where Betje stid stood as 
if transfixed. Young Arnout followed, wondering. 

“Aimout,” began Miss Varelkamp in a self-satisfied voice, 
“ obhge me by telling Betje this moment that it is not you who 
walk up and down the lane of evenings with neighbor’s 
Keetje. There is some misunderstanding which must be at 
once cleared up. Do as I bid you.” 

Amout colored up to the roots of his hair. He was humili- 
ated and annoyed. He looked round the mean little kitchen 


A STORM IN AN EGG-CUP. 


71 


— mean and clean — and at the pink servant, half anxious, half 
defiant, by the stove, and at his prim old aunt, with her air of 
conscious triumph, the forgotten cup still prominent before 
her meagre bust. His head was full of the open page in his 
hand, on which the countess was just telling the handsome 
tenor that her heart was not her husband’s. The whole situ- 
ation was ludicrous, insulting, insupportable. He scowled at 
the two eager women, a very ugly^cowl from his bright young 
face. 

“ Keetje ? ” he said. “Keetje? What do you mean, Tante 
Suze “? I wish Keetje and the idiot that runs after her were 
at the bottom of the Zuyder Zee.” And he turned on his heel. 

“ It’s aU right, you see, Betje,” said Suzanna, with a shi’ewd 
smile. “ Om* Aimout never called himself an idiot yet, and 
I don’t think he ever wUl.” 

But before the young gentleman had reached the kitchen 
door Betje had run after him and had caught up his hand, 
which she was vehemently kissing and fondhng and pressing 
to her lips. He tried in vain to escape her. “ God bless you, 
Jongeheer,” she said — and he hated above aU things to be 
called “ jongeheer ” ; ‘‘ but you remember, when you were httle, 
‘ as an ox goeth to the slaughter ’ — as an ox. Dear Heaven, I 
fear me you will go like an ox when the time comes. Oh, I 
am so glad. Don’t be angiy with your old nurse who loves 
you. Oh dear, dear ! ” And Betje sat down on the kitchen 
fioor and wept. 

Arnout broke away and ran up-stairs, two steps at a time. 
He was very much disgusted, and somewhat amused, and — 
yes, yes, why not give him his due ? — and a httle bit glad of the 
fulness and entireness of his “ No.” 

Mejuffrouw Varelkamp stood placidly gazing at Betje, hud- 
dled up on the floor in confusion of body and soul. She had 
it in her mind to commence a terrible scohhng, but the faith- 
ful servant’s tears disarmed her. And the plenitude of her vic- 
tory rendered her magnanimous. 

“ The idea ! ” she said vigorously. “ My nephew ! The im- 
pudence of it, Betje ! ” But she said no more. 

As she stood there, her glance suddenly feU on tlie forgot- 
ten cup in her hand, and her manner immediately changed. 


72 


AN OLD JIAID’S LOVE. 


“ Dear Heaven ! ” she said, with genuine concern. “ It has aU 
gone down. I shall have to beat up a fresh one. What a pity 
of the egg ! And the port.” 

Betje picked herself up slowly from the floor. “ Thinketh 
no evil,” she muttered half aloud. “ I wonder — I do wonder, 
who the fellow is ? ” 


CHAPTER XIV. 

UN abb6 a marier. 

Arnout went back immediately to Madame de Mongelas. 

“ Eh bien,” she said, looking up from her flower-painting, 

“ and Canzini ? ” — Canzini was the tenor — “ what has he re- 
phed to the countess ? ” 

“ What should he reply, madame ? ” said Arnout, resuming 
his low seat by the couch. “ If the count is unkind, Canzini 
must kill him.” 

Madame laughed a musical little laugh. “ You child ! ” she 
said. “ He will not kill the count, but he will make love to 
the countess. It is simpler. And more agreeable to aU tliree, 
and to monsieur the Procureur-General.” 

“And if her heart be empty,” said Aniout boldly, and proud 
of his own boldness, “ why should not another man step in and 
take possession ? ” 

Madame de Mongelas gazed thoughtfully out of the win- 
dow. A far-away look came into her great black eyes. 

“A woman’s heart is never empty,” she said softly. “ You 
may be sure, mon gar^on, that Canzini had fiUed it before she 
discovered there was no room for the count.” 

There was a moment’s silence. Arnout was wishing he 
could say brilliant things, such as this elegant, charming creat- 
ure was doubtless accustomed to hear. Madame de Mongelas 
was busy with her own reflections. 

“Nonsense,” she said, with a complete change of voice. 
“ What does a serious young man like you know of such mat- 
tei*s ? But you are an abb6, monsieur, or next best — or worst 


UN ABB^: A MARIER. 


73 


— to one. An abb6 ^ marier! How droll it sounds! A 
Dutch Bayard, aUez I A chevalier sans coeur et sans ap- 
proches I ” 

She laughed again, oh, how merrily 1 She was laughing at 
him. He did not always understand her, but in the laughter 
and the good-humored badinage there could be no mistake. 
He was a cliild in her eyes, amusing, harmless, above all, re- 
spectable ; in liis, she was a woman of the world, supremely 
fascinating, on whom he ^wanted for that very reason to make 
a good impression. She never said “ risque ” things to him. 
In France all married women said things that he would have 
thought ‘^risque.” He would have blushed scarlet, had she 
done it, but he was angry with her for leaving it undone. He 
was her httle Provincial.” She treated him like a child. 

“ Read on,” she said. And he obeyed. 

“ Maxima debetui- pueris reverentia,” he growled to liimself. 
She caught the growl, but not the words. Wliat is that you 
mumble to yourself ? ” she said. ‘‘ Evil of me ? ” He laughed 
off the supposition, and turned to the volume on his knee, but 
she dropped an exquisite httle hand across it. How white the 
httle hand looked on the yehow paper, and what vain efforts 
it made to spread itself right over the two pages ! “ What did 

you say ? ” she repeated. “ You must teU me ; or I shall tliink 
it was bad.” 

No, he did not want to say it. He would not make himself 
ridiculous by saying it. He was not going to say it, he — had 
he learned as yet to combat a lovely woman’s wih f They 
quarrehed over it, he awkward and stubborn, she graceful, 
kindly, teasmg — and at the last just a httle bit offended. That 
brought him round at once. 

“ Guess it for yourself, madame,” he said, as suUenly as he 
dared. And he repeated the words. 

She hstened, with a smile for the easy victory around her 
handsome hps. The httle squabble amused her. The boy 
amused her. She wanted amusement, ceaseless amusement, 
as -another looks for daily bread. She took it where she could 
in the duU httle house. 

Maxima,” she repeated, knitting her brows. “ Une maxime 
d’Heb4 est la pime reverence. No, no 5 it isn’t that. Don’t 


74 


AN OLD maid’s LOVE. 


tell me ! I must guess. How stupid I am ! ” She spread out 
her arms as if to keep him off. “ Say it again. Say it slow- 
ly ! ” Her vanity was touched. 

Again he obeyed her, angry with himself for doing so. 

“ Puer,” she said slowly, “ pueril.” Suddenly she looked fuU 
at him . It was her turn to color. “ I have it,” she said quietly, 
“ ‘ We owe the greatest reverence to the young.’ It is true. 
How true it is ! Thank you, mon chevalier.” 

She looked at liim. Perhaps she was thinking more of her- 
self than of the boy before her ; but yet, as she looked, she 
could not help understanding the expression of his face. He 
was deeply mortified. Poor boy ! his morning had not been of 
the pleasantest. She had the good sense to spare him further 
chagrin. 

“ I mean, thank you for telling me, monsieur,” she said 
sweetly. “ You have too much usage of the world to contra- 
dict a woman. Thank you for your kindness in reading to 
me, but I think we shall read no farther this morning. My 
head is tired, and I am going to repose myself. And, after 
aU, the loves of Monsieur Canzini are hardly worth reading 
aloud.” 

She dismissed him with a gracious nod of that exquisite 
head. Then she lay back in her cushions and took up the 
story he had left unfinished. She blushed several times to her- 
self as she read. Monsieur Canzini and his countess were hav- 
ing a merry time of it together, short and sharp, with pistols 
for two and laudanum for one at the end. She blushed — for 
thought of the boy down-staii’s who was not reading to her. 
And she threw the book from her, long before she reached the 
end, with a weary httle sigh of disgust. 

“ I must send to Paris for the ‘Ami de la Jeunesse,’ ” she said. 

And then again she blushed to herself for the thought. 

Juffrouw Varelkamp, in the meantime, was anxiously pre- 
paring her guest’s luncheon. She had turned to this part of 
the day’s labor as soon as Betje had taken up the long-delayed 
egg. She was always doing something for Madame de Mon- 
gelas, and it is to be hoped that Madame de Mongelas duly ap- 
preciated her devotedness. 


UN ABB^l k MARIER. 


75 


That lady had now spent the better part of a week at the 
cottage — from Monday to Friday. There was no palpable 
reason why she should stay much longer. The village doctor 
came twice a day and nibbed the injured foot, and he had de- 
clared that although it would be some time before she used it, 
yet there was no reason why she should not order a carriage 
and drive whithersoever she would. Madame de Mongelas 
showed no anxiety to give the order. “And what is to become 
of your excellent massage, doctor,” she said, “ if I go back to 
the town ? ” The doctor shrugged his shoulders. He thought 
liis massage excellent, as very probably it was, but profes- 
sional etiquette obliged him to say so indirectly. 

So the vicomtesse stayed at Wyk to complete her cure, and 
she stayed at the cottage, because neither she nor her hosts felt 
capable of suggesting a move to the village inn. After the 
first burst of astonished dismay. Miss Varelkamp had settled 
down into a not too ungracious recognition of the strangeFs 
claims to hospitality. Young Arnout’s declaration to Dorothy 
had arrived in the very nick of time to ease her mind of anx- 
iety in that direction, at least for the time being, and the lad’s 
simplicity itself continued to disarm her suspicions. He was 
very much taken by the French lady’s charm of manner and 
grace of pose, by that nameless elegance of the Pai’isian which 
blends form and speech and movement in one harmonious 
whole. He showed his admiration, and talked of it, as any boy 
might do. He compared the vicomtesse and Dorothy in his 
aunt’s presence — ^he was always comparing them 5 and he 
pointed out to her how he admired the former lady and how 
he — ^loved Dorothy, “ don’t you see ? It is quite a different 
feeling, Tante Suze. I can’t help seeing what a beautiful 
woman Madame de Mongelas is. I — I — admire Kothen Castle, 
tante ; but I live in the cottage.” 

Of course. Suzanna smiled on the loves of the young pair. 
It was the desire of her life to see them united, and she now 
beheld that desire approaching its fulfilment. Dorothy had 
more money than Arnout, but it was not the money which 
largely influenced Miss Varelkamp, though she quietly rejoiced 
to think he would never know, as she knew it, what the strug- 
gle of genteel poverty meant. She had known the Donselaars 


76 


AN OLD IVLATD’S LOVE. 


all her life — she had once known Mynheer van Donselaar very 
intimately — she loved Dorothy as a daughter. She deemed her 
abnost worthy of young Amout’s heart and hand. 

She smiled to think of her first foohsh anxiety concerning 
that young gentleman’s affections. As she watched the fair 
invalid lying among her cushions and her laces, a mass of 
flowered silks and soft perfumes, Miss Varelkamp felt that to 
connect her charms with the future of a theological student 
was a wilful leap into romance. She felt, moreover, that it 
was an insult to the steady boy who had never given her cause 
to doubt him. That very consciousness drove her, perhaps, in 
her strict sense of justice, to another extreme of aggressive 
trustfulness. She had no appreciation of romance in any 
form ; she knew neither the name nor the thing. Romance ? 
People used to sing foohsh untrue songs in her youth caUed 
“ romances ” ; they did not do so any more. The Bible was 
ah matter-of-fact, and the provincial Coiirant was ah matter- 
of-fact (poor old lady!), and the missionary reports were >aU 
matter-of-fact. The only unreahties she ever met with 
on paper were the inacem’acies in her butcher’s bihs. And 
she “ spotted ” those with wonderful quickness. Time enough, 
the bills were not over long. They did not eat meat every day 
at the cottage — at least, not when Arnout was away. 

Madame de Mongelas was contented to stay on. She had 
been travelhng through Hohand, it appeared, when the acci- 
dent befeh her, and had taken a carriage from Overstad on 
that day, to drive round the neighboring villages, a favorite 
tour with visitors to the town. She had no particular reason 
to regret the delay. There was nothing to recall her to her 
home in Paris. “ Mon chez-moi,” she said bitterly, “ eh, ce 
n’est pas gai d’etre ton jours seule. Nous autres femmes, nous 
preferons un chez-nous.” She was the widow of a French offi- 
cer, mueh older than herself, who had fallen au Tonkin,” far 
away among the Climese. She had enough to “exist” upon, 
she said, “ enough not to die of hunger where the appetite is 
small,” That was all the Varelkamps knew about her. She 
talked constantly of herself, but very rarely of her circum- 
stances. Judging by her tastes in aU matters concerning the 
wardrobe or the ffinner-table, her appetite for tlie bare means 


UN ABBE A MARIER. 


77 


of existence would have satiated a regiment of IVIiss Varel- 
kamps. 

This was one of the reasons why the Widow Barsselius cease- 
lessly urged that the patient should be transferred to the wid- 
ow’s substantial house in town. There she could have much 
better care and nourishment, and aU the luxuries she had been 
accustomed to. She fi-ankly told Madame de Mongelas that 
her sister Varelkamp could not afford to keep her. She told 
her in Suzanna’s presence, out of kindness to Suzanna, and 
that there might be no mistake about the matter. ‘‘ I like sim- 
ple, straightfoiward intercourse,” she said, “ and plenty of it. 
And I teU you openly, Madame la Vicomtesse, that there’s not 
butter enough in this house for two, let alone for three. Now, 
at my table you can have as much sweet-stuff as you like, and 
the ladies of your nation cannot hve without ‘confltm'es.’ 
Come to me. I will fetch you in a comfortable carriage. I 
don’t mind the expense.” 

But Madame de Mongelas softly said she preferred the but- 
ter of “ la Tante Suze,” and so she stayed and contentedly ate 
the jam which that lady unwearyingly prepared for her. 
“You must know what you do,” remarked the fat widow 
spitefully, going off in a huff. “ It’s no business of mine. 
My relations will have my money when I die, if I choose to 
leave it them. But they’U have none of it before that time, 
and I’m in no hurry to go. So don’t you make debts on the 
strength of that, Suzanna.” 

This last was a cruel shot, for Mevrouw Barssehus was well 
aware of her sistei-’s painful scrupulousness. Suzanna had 
never owed any man anything, no, nor woman either, least of 
all the Widow Barsselius. But the fat lady was very much 
put out. She wi’ote several epistles to the vicomtesse, describ- 
ing the superior conveniences of her estabhshment. It was the 
“ vicomtesse,” the foreigner, the Roman Cathohc that attracted 
her — all the things, in a word, which repelled Suzanna. But 
matters standing thus, and the stranger strongly expressing her 
desire to continue the massage at Wyk, Juffrouw Varelkamp 
decided, with a pride which was all her own, that her guest 
must stay as long as she chose. She communicated this re- 
solve to her sister, and the fat widow answered by return of 


78 


AN OLD ]\IAID'S LOVE. 


post. “ You will suffer for your vanity, my deal’ Suzaiina,” 
she wi’ote, “ when you sit next winter without a fii-e. But it 
has always been yom* way, with that boy as m aU other mat- 
ters, imreasonably and unnecessarily to deny yourself. I be- 
lieve you like it. Some people do. Their one pleasure is to 
have as few pleasures as possible. I send you my best wishes 
for the success of your scheme, and a bottle of preserved peaches 
for the invalid. Your affectionate sister, Annamaria Barsse- 
lius. P.S. — The peaches are of the very best quality, as they 
can only be procured at my grocer’s. The price of a bottle is 
two guilders thirty-five. Don’t you think that is very dear ! ” 

Suzanna sighed. Most tilings were expensive to her, but it 
was not the expensiveness of superfiuities that caused her 
wakeful nights. “ My sister sends you these peaches,” she said 
to Madame de Mongelas. I hope you will like them. > And 
my sister asked me the other day whether she should order 
some champagne. I told her I would ask you if you di-aiik 
it.” 

“ J’adore le champagne,” said Madame de Mongelas, “but I 
can do without it. I love aU good things, dear mademoiselle, 
except going to confession, and I dislike that because it is so 
awkward having nothing to confess.” 

Miss Suzanna did not understand. Her French was vei-y, 
very rusty, and Anioiit had often to act as interpreter between 
the two ladies. He was making progress, the vicomtesse as- 
sured him. “ You do not gaUop, as yet, mon cher, but at least 
you have leai-ned to trot.” And whenever he came a cropper, 
she would clap her hands and cry, “ A fiill ! A fall ! ” 
Ai’iiout thought she might have been less merciless in her cor- 
rections. But he talked on all the same, with Spartan forti- 
tude. “ It is so useful, taute, you know,” he said to liis aunt. 
“Just think what a gi’and opportunity. Whatever she costs 
you to keep, she saves us in French lessons. It is absolutely 
necessaiy to learn French, Aunt Suzanna.” “ I cannot say I 
see the necessity,” said Amit Suzanna ; “ there ai’e more bad 
books than good ones written in French j and, anyway, both 
get translated, and it don’t strike me you pick out the good.'” 

Tliis last was a straight shot, for Ai’uout had returned to 
his aunt uncut a French missionary report which she had 


UN ABBE A IMARIER. 


79 


tlinist upon his notice, as counterweight to the books he saw 
in the viscountess’s room. The honest fellow had not had the 
cunning to cut the leaves. 

“ Calvin was a Frenchman,” he said, to make a diversion. 

“ He was,” said Snzanna, “ and our Saviour was a Jew — Lord 
forgive me the comparison, but I can’t help thinking the two 
were given to each nation to restore the balance, just as the 
righteous men were counted up in Sodom. Do you thuik, 
Jakob, that it’s our Chidstian duty to love the French? As 
for the Jews — no, I can’t.” 

The young minister had been standing at the window, look- 
ing di’eamily out. In aU theoretical matters of conscience, as 
he knew by long experience, Snzanna invariably appealed to 
tlie ‘‘Domini.” The praetical ones she settled for herself with- 
out any elerieal assistance. He wondered quietly, with an 
amused smile, whether Arnout would take his place as soon as 
he obtained his degree. 

“ Not on aceount of Calvin,” he answered ; “ rather the other 
extreme, I should say. Besides, Calvin was hardly a French- 
man, Miss Suzanna.” 

“ Calvin was an apple,” bm’st in young Amout flippantly — 
the Dnteh eaU CalviUe apples “ Calvins ” — “ he was the apple 
of discord that tiumed Eve out of Paradise, and we haven’t di- 
gested liim yet.” 

“Arnout ! ” cried Aunt Suzanna in her most wrathful voice. 
He shrank back a little ; already he repented him of his temer- 
ity. “ This comes of daily intercourse with frivolous French- 
women and idolatrous papists ! You, a son of the Reformed 
Church, soon to be one of her teachers ! Oh, Amout ” — her 
harsh voice faltered just the merest tilfle — “you would not 
have said that a month ago.” She got up and left the room, 
without another look at her penitent nephew. His careless 
blow had gone straight to her heart. 

“ You see, Amoiit,” said Jakob, with a slight tinge of color 
on his delicate cheek ; “ some of us old-fashioned people are still 
like that. We can’t help it. We have our little weaknesses 
of veneration stdl. They are small — it is touching to see how 
tliey go on deereasing — but they stiU exist, and they modestly 
hide away in little sanctuaries of their own. But when people 


80 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


rush into the Holy of Holies and wi-ite up ‘ Cleanliness is next 
to Godliness. Buy Pears’ Soap/ we object. I know it is back- 
ward in us, and that makes us all the more sensitive. People 
didn’t apologize for their rehgion three hundred years ago.” 

I won’t be sneered at, Jakob,” said Amout hotly. “ You’re 
as flippant as I am, if it comes to that. You’re always laugh- 
ing at religion, only you laugh at other people’s rehgion, in- 
stead of at your own. There’s more real earnestness, I 
should say, in facing one’s own foUies than in satirizing other 
men’s.” 

“ Earnestness,” answered Jakob. “ Is it earnestness you are 
in search of ? That alters the matter. Rehgion, my friend, is . 
not a matter of comparisons, as most people appear to think. 
It is the one thing on earth which is not comparable, because 
it is the one thing which is absolute.” 

“Don’t grow philosophic, Jakob. You know Madame de 
Mongelas cahs you my philosophic friend, ‘ as philosophic as if 
he were not pious, and as pious as if he were not philosophic.’ 
She gave me a fine definition of philosophy the other day, 
which is about the most philosophic thing I ever heard in my 
life. ^ The intentional perversion of a terminology expressly 
invented for that particular object.’ That’s your philosophy 
for you in a nutshell, and this is mine.” He ^pped his finger 
against a full-blown rose which was . standing on the table. 
The leaves fell out under his touch. 

“ I mean,” said Jakob, turning timidly away to the window, 
“ that my religion is not your religion, and that your religion 
is not my religion. And that nobody but you can know 
whether your religion satisfies your heart.” 

There was silence between them for a moment. Said Jakob 
softly : “ Your pMosophy, at any rate, is of a transient natime. 
See, your rose has already lost its leaves.” 

“My religion,” cried Arnout passionately, “is that of aU 
men. And of none. Did I want to study theology ? Am I 
to be better than everybody else because I did so ? Candidate 
of the Holy Gospel ! Minister of the Word of God ! Am I 
responsible for the insolent titles ? Yes, I am candidate of the 
Holy Gospel. I am so because I learned a little Hebrew and a 
lot of Chiu'ch History. I very nearly missed being it, because 


UN ABBE A MARIER. 


81 


I did not know quite sufficient Hebrew, but I was so well up 
ill dead men’s heresies, that they felt I must be fit to stand up 
as teacher of my own. H I only learn now thoroughly how 
they elect the Synod and the sub-committees, they will make 
I me a servant of the Church and a minister of God, or is it a 
minister of the Church and a servant of God ? It seems the 
two can go together, even nowadays. That is my religion. It 
don’t affect my life, you see, — any more than anybody’s else. 
It is a matter of chiu’ch-membership.” 

“ Poor Araout ! ” said Jakob stOl more softly. 

“ On the contrary, I am not to be pitied. I am to be praised. 
By hard work and strenuous effort^three years of student 
life, including wines and college fees — I shall raise myself to 
a pitch of holiness above my fellows. Above them by the fiiU 
height of the pulpit-stairs. They will neither preach nor prac- 
tise. I, at least, though I do not practise, shaU teU them in 
my preaching that they ought to. And when everybody has 
called me ‘ Right Reverend ’ for a couple of years, I shall prob- 
ably begin to beheve them. You clergymen always increase in 
self-reverence. It is a beautifid proof of the hallowing in- 
fluence of the trade. Wlio knows how respectable I may find 
myself in time ! ” 

Poor Amout ! ” said Jakob for the second time. His eyes 
grew troubled and moist. He was a weakly creatm-e, you see, 
in constant bad health. He could not help hhuself. Amout 
saw it, but he tm*ned away resolutely and went on. 

“ Very pleasant, isn’t it ? To know that you can go on 
studjdng and preaching, and that you needn’t believe it’s really 
meant. Fancy a religion au pied de la lettre. ^ Thou shalt 
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with aU thy soul. 
Be ye holy,’ — ^holy, mind you — ‘ even as I am holy.’ Holy — 
holy.” His voice had di’opped. He spoke the last words veiy 
slowly, and then stopped. 

In the living silence that filled the httle room, a few more 
rose-leaves, slowly detaching themselves, fell on the table with 
a gentle thud. 

“ Oh, Jakob,” he cried, “ I do love what is good and pure 
and righteous. I do love — God. Oh, my God, my God ! ” 

There was a despair in his voice that rang tlnough the 
6 


33 


AN OLD ]\IAID’S LOVE. 


solGmii words. AVithout RDotliGr look tkosG S8<d oyos bosido 
him, he rushed out of the room. 

Jakob remained standing where he stood. His look was up- 
lifted towards the full glory of the midday sun. And his lips 
moved faintly now and then, as if in prayer. 


CHAPTER XV. 

THE BEAUTY OF DANGER. 

SUZANNA felt she must think the whole matter over, but for 
the moment she was not at hberty to do so. Until madame’s 
luncheon was ready, the duties of the kitchen demanded her 
hostess’s undivided attention. Ajid so Suzanna returned to her 
stove. On this day of aU others she was particularly anxious 
to achieve success, for — the invalid having complained of a 
falling away of appetite — she had leaped boldly into extrava- 
gance and had actually purchased a fat little pigeon for the 
lady’s special delectation. This costly acquisition, procured 
and prepared with almost reverential care, had been placed by 
Miss Varelkamp’s own hands in the roasting-pan, Betje look- 
ing on the while with amazement very nearly akin to awe. 
Betje had now lived more than thirty years with Mejuffrouw 
Varelkamp, but she had not learned how to roast pigeons. 

The precious bird was frizzhng' in the oven, beautiful in 
death, the ruddy brown of its fragi’ant breast a-sparkle with 
luscious bubbles. Very tenderly Miss Varelkamp lifted it 
foi-th at the right moment and placed it on a snow-white dish. 
She could not help thinking regretfully, as she gazed upon it, 
how very small it was for eleven pence, but she repressed the 
thought immediately as ungenerous, and -carried her offering 
unhesitatingly up-stairs. Madame de Mongelas had said she 
was not hungry, and would be quite content with a couple of 
poached eggs or an omelet. Suzanna recalled this to her mind 
with a grim smile of satisfaction, as she paused on the land- 
ing. What would Madame de Mongelas say to so luxurious a 
feast ? 


THE BEAUTY OF DANGER. 


83 


The more she felt it to be her unpalatable duty to afford the 
sick stranger such hospitality as was in her power, the more 
anxious she became to do well and ungrudgingly what she had 
undertaken. Perhaps Madame de Mongelas would have ex- 
perienced a httle less punctilious kindness, had Miss Varel- 
kamp been a little less conscious of dislike and distrust. She 
wished her visitor to go, and therefore she set to making her 
unreasonably comfortable. She dishked her excessively, and 
therefore she bade her stay as long as she wished. In all this 
there was nothing akin to hypocrisy — we have seen sufficiently 
that Miss Varelkamp was ever the most truthful of women — 
there was only the stem resolve to be just and the fear of in- 
justice which often overpowered aU her other faculties of reas- 
oning. It was when she considered herself wrong, not when 
she considered herself right, that Miss Varelkamp became soon- 
est unreasonable. 

She went into the room with her tray. 

“ You are too good, my dear mademoiselle,” said the vicom- 
tesse languidly — she said it twenty times a day, but she never 
seriously attempted to check the superfluity she complained of. 
“You are too good, and you give yourself far too much 
trouble. You and your amiable nephew are quite spofling me 
for my sohtary life. I do not demand delicacies, dear Miss 
Suzanna ; I should be happy with the humblest, where in your 
house the humblest is of the best.” 

“ What will she say when she sees the pigeon ? ” thought Su- 
zanna. She was in a flutter to reveal it, but she did not care 
a single stiver for the Frenchwoman’s praise or approval. 
“She flatters,” she said, “and therefore she hes.” She was 
quite incapable of appreciating at its sterhng value madame’s 
form of continuous courtesy. When she understood her words, 
she misunderstood her meaning. 

She lifted the cover, and then she turned towards her guest. 
Madame de Mongelas was gazing out of the window, watching 
with intensest mterest a swallow that had got entangled in the 
broken branches of a tree over the way. Her whole frame was 
a-tingle with excitement. She bent forward, her eyes dilated, 
stretching out her hands as if she would help the bird in its 
efforts to stmggle free. “ Oh, you must save it,” she said, “ oh, 


84 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


mon Dieu ! mon Dieu ! Wliat a lioiTor ! He will not do it. 
He cannot. Ah, save him, mademoiselle ! ” 

“ Wliat is the matter ? ” asked Suzanna tartly, standing dish- 
cover in hand. 

“Oh, the bird yonder in the tree,” cried madame, excit- 
edly pointing. “ Oh, how he struggles. He makes pity to 
behold.” She tlmew herself to and fro on her couch. “ You 
must save him, mademoiselle,” she repeated ; “ you must save 
him ! ” 

“You do not expect me at my age, I presume,” rejoined Su- 
zanua, “ to climb up to the top of that tree to dehver a bii’d. 
If you do, perhaps my rheumatism may excuse me, Madame • 
de Mongelas.” She spoke a httle spitefully. 

Madame de« Mongelas barely heeded her. “ No, not that,” 
she said thoughtfully; “yet your nephew might. Oh, what a 
good idea ! CaU to him, mademoiselle ; bid him to rush down 
immediately. Quick, quick ; there is no time to lose. He will 
do it. He is brave, and he has a tender heart ! ” 

“ I shall certainly not send my nephew on any fresh wild- 
goose chase,” said Suzanna very angrily. “He engages in 
enough already on his own account.” 

An ugly hght flashed through the Frenchwoman’s eyes. 

“ The bii'd is a swallow,” she said. “ Yom' nephew will never 
chase geese ; he flies at liigher game. Ah, if I had him here, 
I would malte him go.” She struck her hand on the window-sill 
as she said the word. Her eyes flashed strength and defiance. 
Then she quivered back among her cushions. “ Oh, it is hor- 
rible!” she said. “I cannot support the seeing it. Ah, 
mademoiselle, you have a hard heart. Do you feel nothing 
for the poor httle unfortunate ? ” 

“ I feel for men and women,” said Suzanna. “ I trust you 
always feel for them, Madame de Mongelas.” 

Madame de Mongelas had started up again. She had no 
thought for anything but the fluttering httle existence away 
yonder, batthng for its life. Suddenly she broke into what 
was almost a shriek of triumph. “ I hear him,” she cried, “ in 
the garden. Go to him, MademoiseUe Suze! CaU to him! 
Ah, look at the httle prisoner ! He is beginning to flutter 
again. Monsiem* Arnout will rescue hun,” 


THE BEAUTY OP DANGER. 


85 


“ Peace, woman,” said Suzanna in Dutch, setting her teeth 
hard. 

The Frenchwoman half rose from her conch with a sup- 
pressed cry. Then, before Suzanna could realize her intention, 
she had thrown herself towards the window as best she coidd, 
painfully wrenching the already dislocated foot. Whatever 
one might think of her airs and graces, there was no doubt 
that this woman could bear bodily suffering. What cared she 
at the moment ? Her eyes were blazing with passion and fierce 
resolve. 

He shall save it ! ” she gasped. 

But Suzanna was too quick for her. The old lady ran round 
to the window. ‘‘You shall not ask him,” she said. “Ho 
would be fool enough to attempt it. He shall not risk his 
precious life for such a trifle.” 

For a moment they faced each other. The grey Dutch- 
woman, erect and resolute, with one hand on the sash ; the 
French beauty in her laces, supporting herself with difficulty 
against ,’the window-curtains, her delicate features distorted 
with anger and pain. 

They looked into each other’s eyes. And each felt that here 
were powers well matched — eager fury and quiet strength. 
They recoded from each other, as he pauses to test his armor 
who meets a foe worthy of his valor. They recoded for one 
moment, each feeling it were best to turn back in time. 

As they stood there, a frightened chirping from the captive 
found its way across the stdlness. He lifted up his voice, as if 
knowing that succor was nigh. 

Down in the garden a man’s steps were heard pacing to and 
fro. 

With a passionate blow Madame de Mongelas struck her 
clenched fist against the window-pane. Once. Twice. The 
glass came clattering down in great jagged fragments. She 
pressed her arm against what was left and thrust it out. Her 
hand was covered with blood. 

“ Madame, vous Stes fou,” cried Suzanna, forgetting ad her 
French in the indignation of the moment. 

“ Fou qui gagne ! ” shrieked the vicomtesse, hanging out 
among a fringe of broken pieces. 


80 


AN OLD HIAID’S LOVE. 


Arnout stood in the middle of a glittering garden path, look- 
ing up in amazement. 

“ Oh, Monsieur Arnold, the little bird yonder ! ” She pointed 
with her bleeding hand. “ You must save him. Quick ! He 
is killing himself.” 

He followed the direction she was indicating. High up in 
the lofty leafage he could detect an agitated rustle. “But 
how can I save it ? ” he said, without removiug his hands from 
his pockets ; “ I have no ladder.” 

“A ladder ! ” she laughed shrilly ; “ no, nor a stone staircase ! 
Ciel ! Does a man ask how, when there is a good deed to be 
done ? The will finds itseK wings. If I were a man, I would, 
show you the way ! ” 

Amout looked up gloomily at the great tree rising before 
him into immeasurable blue. He had fied out into the garden, 
away from Jakob, away from the desperation of his own 
thoughts. He was in a mood for anything devil-may-care. 
Up yonder from the stiU, sunlit fohage broke renewed little 
agonized cries. Could he reach the dizzy spot ? He was an 
athlete and a climber. And if he did not, there would be this 
great advantage : he would not fall, unless he fell from the 
summit. He would not break his leg, but Ms head. 

Miss Varelkamp’s skinny neck came protruding from the 
other window. She had thrown up the sash. “Arnout,” she 
cried in Dutch, “ the creature is crazy, I forbid you — do you 
understand me — I forbid you to try ! ” 

“And I,” said Madame de Mongelas, who caught the mean- 
ing more from the accent than the words, “ I have no right to 
forbid and no need to entreat, I have pointed out the duty, 
monsieur, and your aunt has pointed out the danger. Faites.” 

“ Here goes,” said Arnout ; and he swarmed up the tree. 

The two women stood watching Mm, each at her window, in 
the warm sun-laden silence. He went up easily enough at 
first, up, up, his white flannels inaMng little sMmng patches 
between the spreading branches. Then he stopped, cautiously, 
and the watchers felt that the struggle was come. Then up 
again, very slowly, with long careful pauses and sudden de- 
cisions, away into green heights where they could hardly fol- 
low the line of Ms figui’e, then bending forward, and creeping 


THE BEAUTY OF DANGER, 


87 


softly, like some great caterpillar, along a mighty arch across 
the void. He was coming towards them ; they could see him 
coOing roimd the brown line of the overhanging bough — far 
beneath him the glitter of the cruel gravel path. 

“Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!” gasped Madame de Mongelas. 
The words were not a prayer ; they were a cry of exultation 
and passionate excitement. Suzanna neither spoke nor moved. 
In her bosom was a tumult of hope and of hate. 

Arrived at the extremity of the bough, Amout once again 
hesitated. The distressed swallow hung caught in some 
broken twigs above his head — ^but beyond his reach. Woidd 
the branch bear him, even if he could attain to it ? The ques- 
tion of hfe or death lay there.- He crept back again a little to 
a place on the great arm, on which he could lift himself erect. 
Then he stood up cautiously and stretched out his hand. The 
women watched him. Vain movement. The slender bough 
hung more than a yard beyond him. 

Then suddenly he bent backwards and leaped — ^leaped into 
wide space, as a bird might break away — leaped at the frail 
foliage above him, caught at it, clutched it, and hung swaying 
to and fro, a white speck in immensity, while with one hand 
he seized at the swallow, whose rapid cries resounded through 
the air. 

“ Le brave ! ” said Madame de Mongelas softly. The bough 
bore him — at least for a moment — ^it bent like a bulrush under 
his weight, and, watching his opportunity as it sank down- 
wards, he let himelf fall on to the larger branch beneath. As he 
loosened his hold, the fragile branch above him broke off near 
the stem, with a hissing crash that struck home into the hearts 
of the hearers. It hung limp and broken, its white wound 
showing against the weather-beaten trunk, 

Arnout commenced his descent, with the fluttering bii*d in 
one hand, pressed lightly against his breast. The lookers-on 
breathed more freely, yet, in reality, had they known it, this 
part of the expedition, especially now one hand remained oc- 
cupied, was in many ways the more dangerous of the two. 
There came a moment when Amout, stfll some feet from the 

ground, slipped, stumbled, swayed forward 

In that flash of time — clear as distant lightning — aU three 


AN OLD MAID'S LO^’^3. 


realized that, if he let the bird go, his left hand could grasp at 
a branch near him. He did not move its position on his 
breast. And with a dull thud he fell to the gi*ound. 

“Est-il possible?” said Madame de Mongelas, white to the 
lips. 

Suzanna was already on the stairs and in the garden and by 
lier nephew’s side. 

She bent down to lift up his head — oh, so tenderly ! — but he 
opened his eyes immediately. He was only stunned and 
bruised, not seriously hiu*t. 

“ Thank you, tantetje,” he said dreamily, “ it is nothing.” 

Her manner changed immediately. 

“ Do not thank me, Aimout,” she answered 5 ‘‘ thank God 
that you are not in hell at this moment. I do not ask your 
thanks. I have seen to-day how you bestow them upon me. 
Go and claim those of the woman to amuse whom you ven- 
tured your hfe.” And she left him. 

Arnout got up slowly and shook himself. And then he went 
up-stairs, as his aunt had suggested, with the bii‘d still clasped 
to his breast. Suzanna watched whether he would go, stand- 
ing by the dining-room window, where she found Jakob, who 
had been a silent spectator of the whole scene. 

Madame de Mongelas received her knight with great ap- 
probation, pouring praise enough into his ear to confound a 
more experienced warrior. 

. “A woman,” she said, “ in my nation — a nation of heroes — 
can do a man no greater honor than to look into his eyes and 
say, 'Vous etes un brave.’ I said it just now, involuntaiily, 
when you sprang out into space. I repeat it, weighing my 
words. I am a woman like all others. And not because I am 
myseK, but because I am a woman and you are a man, the 
words were well w'orth dying for.” 

He laid the frightened bird in her hand, and as she strove 
to soothe it with the other, he noticed that she, too, was hurt.. 

“In the cause of suffering,” she said, “do you think we 
women dare do nothing ? Ah, mon chevalier, danger is a beau- 
tiful thing!” She avoided liis eyes as she said it. And 
presently she continued, in a lighter tone, “ The creature is not 
injured. You have saved it from a hondble death. Tiens, 


THE DANGER OF BEAUTY. 


89 


Tami ! ” She held out her beautiful arm towards the broken 
window and opened her hand. The bh-d lay in it for a 
second, half frightened stiU. Then he spread out his wings 
and flew away. 

u To France,” she said, looking dreamily after him, and teU 
them that the sun shines everywhere, and that wherever he 
shines, the birds build up their nests.” 

“ I risked my life to get him for you,” said Aimout in an in- 
jured voice. 

She turned on him in surprise. “ Not that,” she said. 
“ You risked your hfe to save him from the most terrible of 
deaths. And I knew that you would risk it, because you are 
as brave as you are strong.” 

“ I risked it for your sake,” he said stfll moodily. “ I don’t 
care for birds.” 

“ But I do,” she answered quickly, “ and I do not believe 
you. And I restored him the hberty which is his by right.” 

Liberty ! ” he repeated bitterly. “ What do you know 
of hberty, madame? You only know the tyrant and the 
slave.” 

“ No gallantries ! ” she said, laughing. “ You have not yet 
learnt how to say them. It is true that men know httle of 
hberty. It is a privilege of the brutes. We human beings 
have the higher happiness of surrender, which is love. But 

I ?” She paused. “Get me some water to wash the 

blood from my hand,” she said. 

And he obeyed her. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

THE DANGER OP BEAUTY. 

In the meantime the unfortunate pigeon lay greasing over 
in its sauce. 

Amout saw it there when he came back with the water, and 
he advised madame to commence her neglected lunch. “ Oh, 
but I cannot,” cried that lady, whose interest in tlie live bird 


90 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


had caused her altogether to overlook the dead one. “ It is 
Friday to-day, my jour maigre ; I cannot eat meat to-day.” 

Arnout stared in astonishment. “ But I thought you said 
you didn’t care about the priests,” he said, “ and that they were 
all commission-agents for places in heaven, and that sort of 
thing.” 

“ That is possible,” she answered quietly, “ but that has noth- 
ing to do with ‘ meagre days.’ It would be very unlucky for 
me to eat meat on Fridays. And perhaps my foot would not 
get weU. I am so sorry,” she continued, as he stood irreso- 
lute ; “ I told your aunt expressly that I was not hungry, and 
would prefer an egg. For I thought you Huguenots would 
not understand about fasting. Vrai, monsieur, I must say it. 
You Huguenots have no rehgion. You do nothing. D6bar- 
rass me of my pigeon, I implore you. Eat it ; it wiU do you 
no harm, I suppose. The holy Peter pays no attention to your 
doings 5 you have an easy time of it — on earth.” 

She added the two words veiy maliciously, and looked 
askance at him, and grinned — if beauty can grin. “ Do you 
beheve this — thing ? ” said Ai-nout. 

“ You are an infidel and do not understand. It is most an- 
noying. Your aunt is angry enough with me ah-eady. TeU 
her, for Heaven’s sake, that I have eaten her dainty.” 

“A second lie,” said Arnout. “Are lies no harm ? ” 

“What do you mean, mon cher?” She opened her big 
eyes wide. “ You are very rude,” she said. 

“ You won’t eat meat,” he continued, “ but you don’t mind 
teUing lies about it.” 

“ But you don’t understand,” she answered. “ You do not 
understand at aU. L’un serait un peehe, I’autre est une poli- 
tesse. There is no other difference than that.” 

“ I am much obhged to you for teUing me, madame,” said 
Arnout gravely, as he walked out of the room. 

His mind was in a ferment. The morning had been rich in 
changes of sentiment. He recalled his aunt’s refutation of 
Betje’s ridiculous charge, and the subsequent scene in which 
Madame de Mongelas had treated liim hke a child. Thenf later 
on, had come the conversation with Jakob which had stirred 


THE DANGER OP BEAUTY. 


91 


up all the latent discontent of his heart. And a few minutes 
after that, he had faced death for a trifle, an idea — he himself 
hardly knew what. Why should he not face death ? What 
did it matter ? 

It was unnatural that he, with his healthy enjoyment of life, 
should put such a question. If he did so momentarily, if must 
be because he was passing from one phase into another, and 
the confusion of the moment overmastered him. It is when 
we sink lowest into despair that we leap highest towards new 
hope. And when the stream of life stagnates for a moment, 
we cry, beneath its bursting pressure, that it were better stiU. 
But often, almost before the words have left our lips, it is leap- 
ing away again, perhaps beyond its proper bounds, but with 
fresh strength from the brief delay. Would Amout Oos- 
trum’s life tm-n to the right? The answer at that moment 
hardly lay with him. It seemed to him as if his whole exisf 
ence was breaking loose from its former well-appointed little 
channel. The world was much larger, life was much fuller, 
than he had ever thought. Beyond his little circle loomed in 
a new horizon — delightful in the haze — the fair world of Paris 
and things Parisian. For many months he had been wander- 
ing away from the neat grooves of his aunt’s theology, but he 
had met with nothing to replace that which was escaping his 
gi’asp. Madame de Mongelas found the garden prepared in 
which to sow the seeds of her easy-going philosophy of con- 
tempt. “ Nothing is worth admiring or suffering for. Enjoy- 
ment, though unattainable, is the end of existence. A wise 
man tolerates aU opinions and reverences none.” 

How easy it woifld all- be, if only we had no passions. Now- 
adays we might manage to settle with our consciences. But 
our passions spoil the game — ^hke breaths of wind against a 
house of cards. 

He had fled from Jakob in great wrath with himself. No 
moment could have been better chosen to tempt him to reck- 
less adventure. And when, still fresh from the struggle and 
the danger, he brought his trophy to the beautiful French- 
woman and was rewarded by her snule, he realized in the sud- 
den revulsion of feeling, as he had never done before, how 
great had become her influence over liim. The discovery did 


92 


AN OLD RIAID’S LOVE. 


not in any way startle or distress him. Madame de Mongelas 
was too brief an episode in his life. In a few days she would 
be gone out of it forever, and the very last thing she would .re- 
member with anything approaching interest would be the stu- 
dent of theology, Arnout Oostrum. 

He smiled to himself at the thought, and suddenly — ^for so 
does one change of mood beget another — there broke across 
his heart a wave of recognition of good, pure, sweet Dorothy 
Donselaar. 

A few days ago he had asked Dorothy to be his wife — some 
day. He had done so partly, perhaps, from a chivalrous de- 
sire to uplift her once for all above his Aunt Barsselius’s vul- 
gar banter. It was a very good thing, all the same, and a very 
sensible one, to have done. Of course he had done it. He 
loved Dorothy Donselaar. 

He told himself several times that day, with eager repetition, 
that he loved Dorothy Donselaar. 

‘‘ But she goes to-morrow, Jakob,” said Mejufh’ouw Varel- 
kamp. 

“ Where to ? ” asked Jakob dryly. 

“Tq the inn, or the poorhouse, or ‘where the pepper 
grows.’ ” 

“ Or Mevrouw Barsselius’s ? ” suggested Jakob. For a pioiis 
young man and a minister he had a wonderful little weakness 
for teazing. 

“ Or my sister Barsselius’s,” assented Suzanna. 

“ WTio win make her almost as comfortable as you have done. 
Miss Suzanna.” 

“ My sister Barssehus has a large house and two servants. 
Tliese things do not, in themselves, insm’e the airing of the 
beds. It is the eye of the mistress which does that. But I 
have nothing to say with regard to my sister Barsselius’s 
household arrangements.” 

“And you are going to pass Madame de Mongelas on to her 
after all ? She will be glad of that.” 

“ Do you want her to remain here, Domine V’ 

“No,” said Jakob; “but when she leaves, I want her to go 
for good and all. That will be, I suppose, in a day or two. 
It seems to me that Mevrouw Bai-sselius, if she once gets her. 


THE DANGER OF BEAUTY. 


93 


will keep her for ever. And I don’t want Ai’noiit to pity 
her. I want him to think you are the injured party, not 
she.” 

“ Good heavens, J akob,” said Suzanna indignantly but anx- 
iously, you don’t mean to teU me you think Ai-nout need be 
considered in the matter! Arnout has notliing to do with 
Madame de Mongelas.” 

Dear Juffrouw, I did not say he had.” 

“A Frenchwoman — a papistr— a woman of rank— a woman 
of fashion,” cried Suzanna, heaping up the hst mth unneces- 
sary vehemence. “ She would like to see him try it on my 
son. Let him make love to little Dorothy. I am afraid you 
have not much experience of the world, Jakob.” 

“No, Juffrouw; but I am willing to learn,” answered Jakob 
hiunbly. He pitied her too sincerely to point out that it was 
not he who had suggested the possibilities which aroused her 
indignation. 

“The idea is absurd,” continued Suzanna angrily. “You 
are as bad as Betje. You have very mistaken ideas of my Ar- 
nout. Nobody knows the boy as well as I do, I have watched 
him day by day for fifteen years. He is the very soul of 
honor.” 

“ That he is,” said the minister warmly. 

“Go away now. You are a worthy man, Jakob. But I 
want you to go away.” 

“Like Madame de Mongelas,” said Jakob. “I hope that 
she is as anxious to please you as I always shall be.” And he 
took up his clerical hat and limped off. 

“I have watched him and worked for him and been a 
mother to him fdr the last fifteen years,” said Suzanna to her- 
self, as she resumed her seat in her faded old green-cushioned 
chair, “ and when it comes to choosing between my commands 
and a pretty stranger’s caprice, he chooses the stranger. ’Tis 
not Madame de Mongelas, ’tis the pretty face ; any other would 
do as well, as long as it is a lady. I knew he woiddn’t stoop 
to iTiining my kitchen-girl. I know Amout, inside and out- 
side, like an old glove. Wlio should know him better than I 

She took up her knitting and made a few stitches. Pres- 
ently she di-opped one. She made half a dozen more, and 


94 


AN OLD JIAID'S LOVE. 


then she dropped another. What was this? She had not 
dropped a stitch in her knitting for years. 

She laid it down, and sat looking out of the window, with- 
out seeing anything. “ It is in the blood,” she said, “ and he 
must marry Dorothy — the sooner the better.” 

She was trying to deceive herself, as she had tried to de- 
ceive Jakob ; but she was utterly unconscious of any attempt 
at deceit. It was tme that she did not fear any serious com- 
phcation between her nephew and the foreigner — from Ar- 
nout’s side the thing seemed impossible, from the vicomtesse’s 
ridiculous ; but she was vaguely anxious aU the same, and she 
was intensely mortified, insulted, and hurt in the very lowest 
depths of her deep nature by the humiliation to which Ar- 
nout had subjected her. She hated her triumphant rival for it ; 
the very “ rivalry ” was a pain beyond endimance. 

She hated the woman. And presently, in her unerring 
tmthfulness, she confessed it to herself. “My God,” she 
whispered, folding her hands upon her lap, “ have mercy upon 
me ! I hate her. Can I still hate after more than thirty 
years ? Do all the prayers and victories go for nothing, and 
does one feel at sixty all the misery and the wickedness of 
twenty-five ? I know the feeling ; none better than I. I hate 
her. Had he fallen from the summit, I would have killed her 
where she stood. I would have killed her. Oh, my God, my 
God ! ” 

She sat on through the hours unheeding. 

Up-stairs a light voice was practising yet lighter songs to 
the notes of a guitar. “Ce n’est pas un homme; c’est un 
amour ! ” 

“ It’s tune the French madame had her bouillon, if you’ll , 
get out the rusks,” remarked Betje, walking into the room 
after her second ineffectual knock. 

“And the only way to get rid of her,” said Suzanna, waking 
as it were from a di*eam, “ is to keep her in the house for a few 
days longer, at any rate.” 


SUZANNA’S VICTORIES. 


95 


CHAPTER XVII. 

• SUZANNA’S VICTORIES. 

Betje retimied from up-stairs with an empty cup and a' 
three-cornered note. 

“ She kept me waiting while she wi-ote it,” said Betje, with 
an aggrieved ah-, “ and you don’t tell me she didn’t understand 
me when I told her that my ‘ cookies ’ were on the fire.” 

Suzanna took the dainty httle epistle. Its heavy perfume 
sickened her. She had never seen perfumed paper before, and 
she had a vague idea it must be an invention of the evh one, 
to cloud the brains of young simpletons or to di-own the smeU 
of brimstone, perhaps. 

Madame de Mongelas wrote, in a round French hand — 
“Dear Mademoiselle, 

“ Whl you forgive me if I ask you to come up to me for one 
moment ? It is a favor, but you have accustomed me to favors, 
until perhaps you whl think I grow indiscreet. 

“Vicomtesse de Mongelas.” 

“ Best were never to see her again,” thought Suzanna, as the 
paper fell on her lap. “ She whl make a fool of me if I go.” 

“ Well,” said Betje, “ my dinner is spoht in any case. I may 
as weU take up your answer, Juifruow.” 

“ There is no answer,” rephed Suzanna. “ Go back to your 
kitchen.” 

Betje looked at her mistress attentively, shook her head 
thoughtfuhy, and marched out of the room. 

“ I must be very kind to her,” said Suzanna to herself. “ I 
dishke her, and unless I am very kind indeed, I am sure to be 
unjust.” And she went up-stairs and knocked at Madame de 
Mongelas’s door. 

The vicomtesse half lifted herself from the cushions to wel- 


96 


AN OLD MAID'S LOVE. 


come her hostess. With a superb movement of entreaty she 
held out her hand. 

Mademoiselle ” she said, “I have to confess that I was 
wi’ong, and to beg yom* pardon. I acted under the moment’s 
unpression of compassion, and I forgot that what I was en- 
dangering was not mine to risk, but yom's.” 

Suzanna was least of aU prepared for this. She did not be- 
heve about the compassion, and therein she wronged Madame 
de Mongelas. 

“You have this reason to forgive me,” the latter continued, 
“ that I have proved to you — once again — that yom- nephew is 
a perfect ' galant homme,’ and a noble heart.” 

This gi'aceful httle speech was imfortunate. 

“My nephew, madame,” said Suzanna tartly, in the best 
French she could muster, “ is a student of theology, and should 
be left in peace to continue his studies.” 

Madame de Mongelas colored. “Let us understand each 
other,” she said cahidy. “ My presence here is disagi’eeable to 
you. I have not outstayed my welcome, but I have abused 
your hospitality. So be it. K you will kindly allow me to re- 
main one night longer, I think I can manage to leave this 
house to-morrow. I shaU always be most truly gi-ateful to you 
for the extreme kindness you have shown me, mademoiselle.” 

“And you will go to Mevrouw Bai’ssehus,” said Suzanna bit- 
terly. Oh, the false, the seductive woman ! She found her 
self-imposed duty of amiability beyond her strength. 

Madame de Mongelas smiled. “Ah, how I miderstand you ! ” 
she said. “ No, I will not take refuge with your sister. I will 
fly for good and all. The wicked fairy shall disappear from 
the scene. Where ? Ciel, do I know ? An inn — anywhere — 
where the horrid witches go to. But I have not bewitched 
your nephew, mademoiselle. He is a noble young fellow. 
Ajid we must take care that we do not spoil him, neither I 
nor you.” 

“ You had better stay,” said Suzanna. 

“ Do you not want me to go ? ” 

“ Yes ; and that is why I wish you to stay.” 

“ Let us consider, then, neither yoim preference nor my con- 
venience, but yom* nephew’s welfare. i Let us avoid, in the fii'st 


SUZANNA'S VICTORIES. 


97 


place, mademoiselle, any semblance of an unpleasantness be- 
tween you and me. The doctor comes to-morrow. I will ask 
him to say I can be moved on Monday, and I will go to the 
Catholic Infii-mary at Utrecht. Send the boy away m the 
meanthne, if you can, and if you deem it advisable.” 

Suzanna felt her heart softening somewhat towai-ds the 
stranger. 

“ You wi’ong me,” continued Madame de Mongelas, turning 
her Hmpid eyes towards Suzanna, “ and you wi’ong yom* good 
nephew yet more. You are afraid of ghosts. But you pay 
me a pretty compliment also, and all women enjoy a compli- 
ment from their own sex. Et apres — que voulez-vous ? One 
can understand. Vous etes sa mere.” Suzanna knew herseif 
utterly hmnbled and ashamed 

“ I repeat. He is a noble young feUow, and I admire him. 
I wish him weU with all my heart. And if the doctor will let 
me, I will go quietly on Monday, and we will teU yom friends 
in the village that the air was better for me in the towui.” 

“ You ai-e a better woman than I thought you, madame,” 
said Suzanna bluntly, and then she slunk away. 

The vicomtesse laughed drearily over the compliment. “ I 
have done what I could,” she said to herself. “ Le bon Dieu 
can expect no more of me.” She took up her novel again. 
“ How tiresome they are, these eternal complications ! As if 
there were not adulteries enough in real hfe ! ” 

Suzanna retmned to her knitting calmer in heart and more 
confused in head than when she went up-stairs. And now she 
blundered on to her own defeat. 

Arnout and she had to meet at their five-o’clock dinner. 
Aimout was very penitent. He could not confess to any 
wi-ong-doing, yet he felt that he had caused the dear old 
woman the deepest pain, and he strove to show her he was 
Sony for it. She, on her side, reahzing that, if he were called 
upon to choose again, he would repeat his choice of the morn- 
ing, she knew not how to receive his advances. They grew 
silent and imcorafortable in each other’s presence. They had 
had numerous difficulties before, born out of passing circum- 
stances, and tending towards a foregone conclusion. They 
7 


98 


AN OLD lyiAID’S LOVE. 


had never known separation like this, arising out of an es- 
trangement of hearts. 

‘*Ai-noiit,” said Suzanna bluntly, when the meal was over, 
“ I think you had better go back to Overstad to-morrow. You 
have been here quite long enough.” 

“ But term is drawing to a close, aunt,” said Arnout, “ and, 
besides, I can work much better at home.” 

“ Do not lie to me,” said Suzanna. “ It is Madame de Mon- 
gelas who amuses you.” 

“ Certainly she amuses me, tantetje. She is veiy amusing.” 

“ The more reason for you to go. I shall not ask you any- 
thing again to-day, Ai-nout, after this morning. But this is 
my opinion, and I give it for what it is worth ; you owe it to 
the woman who has your plighted troth, you owe it to the God 
whose servant you are preparing to become, to leave tliis 
house.” 

“ Oh, if you put it like that, Tante Suze,” said Ai-nout, with 
a shmg of his shoulders, “ I wiU go to-mon-ow morning.” 

“ I have gained the victory more easily than I had dared to 
hope,” thought Suzanna. “ His heart is in the right place — 
if only you know how to manage him. And he is very fond 
of me, after all.” 

“ Yes, she is a very dangerous woman,” said Arnout to him- 
seK ; “ no wonder Tante Suze is afraid of her. And no won- 
der I am a little smitten by her charms, as I undoubtedly am. 
Even dear old Tante Suze sees it. It is a fortunate thing I am 
as good as engaged to Dorothy. But Tante is right. I had 
much better go.” 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE PURSUIT OF VICE. 

That evening, at nine o’ the clock, the virtuous Betje, hav- 
ing washed up the dinner things and put on her second-best 
shawl, went out in search of the most beautiful and most mis- 
erable tiling on earth. She found it exactly where she said 


THE PURSUIT OF VICE. 


99 


she had expetded to find it. Nevertheless it must be admitted, 
between you and me, that if she knew the right spot to look 
in, she “ went for it ” in the most unworkmanlike manner. 
It was probably out of pure goodness of heart, and not to put 
too early^a stop to even a reprehensible amusement, that she 
fii-st serambled thi’ough impassable bushes and tore a gi-eat 
hole in her shawl (the second-best), and lost her way, and fell 
into a dry ditch, and sat down unexpectedly in a puddle. 
Perhaps she liked puddles. Perhaps she liked the pursuit of 
vu-tue under difficulties. She certainly liked the piu-suit— and 
capture red-handed — of vice. 

Sweet vice was sitting on a rustic bench in the woods, lost 
among the soft shadows of the summer night. She was 
di-eaming of thmgs strangely and wildly lovely, of things that 
are not, except in her fierce fancy or her sorrowdul regi-et, 
and the reality of min and shame, of rags and famine, stood 
behind her — out of sight. 

Upon her descended Betje with righteous indignation, 
increased by every moment of delay and every experience of 
mischance, and she smote her where she sat lost in delicious 
bewilderment, smote her on a cheek on which the kisses yet 
lay wet. 

“ D — 11 !” cried the youth with a tremendous oath, as he 
started to his feet. 

The wounded damsel gave a simultaneous cry of pain. 

“Ay, and the two of you!” cried Betje; “and a whole 
bushel of you ! I’m not afraid of you ! Come on I ” 

She stmck an attitude of defiance, her bony arms well to 
the front. For virtue, in this case, was stout and strong, as 
it might be wished she always were. 

The guilty pair whom she had disturbed were, however, by 
no means minded to assault her. One of them, m fact — the 
Adam — remembered that the woods were dark, and whisked 
round a comer. Whereupon Eve lifted up her voice and 
wept. 

But the avenger was too quick for him. In a moment she 
had his head well under her arm and was dragging him back 
to the scene of his triumphs and his discomfiture. 

She pulled up his head to the dim light in spite of liis 


100 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


struggles. And then, when she recognized him, she let him 
go, and fell hack a pace in sm'prise. 

“ Mynheer Karel ! ” she said in tragedy tones of wi*ath and 
indignation. 

She had heheved she was dealing with some young groom 
or shop-hoy. Betje had the deepest respect for the gentry, even 
when they went astray. She was a good deal taken ahack hy 
the unexpected discovery. But it increased her anger against 
the unfortunate httle maid. 

“And you’ll he telling me, I suppose,” she cried, turning on 
the latter, “ that it’s marriage you mean ! Oh yes, of course, 
Mevrouw.* And has Mevrouw any further orders to give ? 
Lord-a-mercy on us, to think what a whipping I should give 
you if you were a daughter of mine ! ” 

“ Be quiet, you hrute ! ” said Karel van Donselaar fiercely. 
Having recovered somewhat from his shaking, he felt it was 
time he should do something. He fumbled in his pocket, pro- 
duced a rix-doUar, and held it out towards the priestess of 
virtue. 

She took it and quietly shpped it out of sight. “ That won’t 
hny me a new shawl,” she said coolly, “ hut it’U go some way 
towards it. A fool and his money are soon parted, if you’ll 
forgive my saying so. Mynheer van Donselaar ; hut no amount 
of rix-doUars will keep me from doing my duty to your worthy 
father, sir.” 

“ Grood heavens ! ” cried the young hhertine in a real funk, 
“ you don’t mean to make us unhappy. My good woman, I 
assure you, you are utterly mistaken in your suspicions. No 
harm was intended and no hann has been done. I’ll never 
speak to the poor httle thing again, if her friends don’t approve 
of it. Good-bye, Cornehe ! ” 

Whereupon Eve, driven forth from her httle Paradise, once 
more hfted up her voice and wept. 

“ Hold your tongue — slattern ! ” cried Betje, “ and he thank- 
ful on your bended knees if an angel has stopped you in the 

* The married women of the lower and lower-middle classes do not take 
the style of “ Mevrouw ” in Holland. There are three degrees— Mevrouw, 
Juffrouw, and Vrouw. Juffrouw is also applied to all unmarried women, 
except those of the higher class, ''who are called “ Freule.” 


THE PURSUIT OP VICE. 


101 


way. We shall see what Mejiiffrouw Varelkamp has to say 
to your harmless evening amusements. But you, mynheer, 
unless you want me to speak to your father tliis evening, you 
come along quietly with me.” 

“ Come along with you ? ” said Karel in amazement ; “ I’ll 
be dashed if I do. Wliat for ? Wliere to ? ” 

“ You come along with me,” repeated Betje obstinately. “ I 
don’t know how to manage young gentlemen hke you, and we 
must find out those who do. As for the girl, leave her to me 
and Mejuffrouw.” 

“ I won’t budge a step,” answered Karel, unless you promise 
to keep the matter from my father and from everybody else.” 

“Except one person who won’t betray you,” said Betje. 
“ Done. But you won’t keep your foot from stumbling, young 
sir, if you walk in the dark lanes like this.” 

“ I’m glad there’s no moon,” rephed Karel, who was always 
practical. And, the terms being agreed on, they started. 

Once only Karel broke the silence, as they groped their way 
back through the little wood. “ But what, in Heaven’s name, 
do you want with us ? ” he asked. 

“ I want your souls,” said Betje, with a snap. 

“ Then it seems to me, at any rate, that you might leave our 
bodies alone,” gi’owled young Donselaar. 

But she clutched at his arm, as if he were tiying to escape. 

Arrived at the high-road, they had but a few paces left 
before reaching the cottage. Ordering Keetje to follow at a 
little distance, the high-handed avenger whisked the young 
gentleman into her kitchen and locked him in. Then she went 
in search of Arnout, whom she found packing his portman- 
teau. “Jongeheer,” she began breathlessly, “that minx, 
Keetje, has been making love to Mynheer van Donselaar. I 
caught them at it in the woods. He’s in the kitchen. You 
must teU him not to do it. TeU him all about how wicked it 
is, and how stupid, and that you never do it. Here is the 
key.” 

And she was gone. She found that, in the meantime, Keetje 
had nin off to her mother’s, and so she ran after her. 

Arnout stood staring at the key she had left on the table. 
“A pleasant little pig to wash,” he said, using a famihar 


102 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


Dutch expression, thank you.” And then he said, 

“ Dorothy^s brother,” and went slowly down-stairs. He turned 
the key in the lock very hesitatingly, and walked into the 
bright bare kitchen. Karel van Donselaar sat huddled up 
under the flaring gaslight. 

“Oostrum,” he said, starting up, “don’t preach to me. I 
won’t stand it. You’re not a parson yet.” He evidently 
wanted to brave the matter out. 

Said Arnout : “ My dear fellow, I don’t want to preach to 
anybody. I know nothing about the business at all.” 

“Oh!” rephed Karel, catching at a straw. “I was only 
joking, you know. ‘ Theol. Stud.’ and all that. I have a note 
for you from my father somewhere,” and he began fumbling 
in his coat-pocket. “There was nobody about, so I just 
stepped into the kitchen.” 

“ Through the keyhole ? ” said Amout. He coidd not bear 
the other’s lying ways. “ Karel, what is this about you and 
my aunt’s Httle maid ? ” 

Donselaar dropped his hand from his pocket. “ Then you 
do know,” he said. “ It’s no business of yours.” 

“Yes, it is. Or rather, she is. You’ve no business to 
meddle with her.” 

“Oho, is that it? ’’said Karel with a leer. “Well, I’ve as 
good a right as you, any day. Why didn’t you manage to 
keep her? You’re too stingy, I fancy. Girls like that want 
presents, and plenty of them.” 

Arnout had been utterly at a loss how to approach the sub- 
ject. His young friend smoothed the way for him. 

“ What do you inean, you cad ? ” he burst out in a towering 
rage. “ Do you think that everybody else is as dirty a scoun- 
drel as you are ? I touch the wetched little creature — I ” 

He could get no further. Young Arnout had a fine fountain 
of temper, if only you touched the proper spring. 

“ Tut-tut,” said Karel, half frightened. “ She told me you 
had been her first lover. I can’t help it if the httle puss teUs 
hes.” 

“ I haven’t looked at her since she was a baby,” said Amout ; 
“ and, mind you, Donselaar, this is a case of ‘ hands off.’ The 
sooner you understand that the better. You must give me 


THE PURSUIT OF VICE, 


103 


yom* word of honor that you will never speak to the poor child 
again.” 

“ Don’t you wish you may get it ? ” said Donselaar. 

“ I am not going to preach to you,” continued Arnout ; ‘‘ God 
knows I am both unfit and unwilHng to preach. But I tell 
you plainly this thing that you are doing is a low thing, a 
cruel thing. Ai’e there not women enough in the cities of 
whom you can ask whatsoever you want ? Tliis girl’s whole 
existence is in your hands. Only a cowai’d would crush it.” 

“ She should have thought of that before,” said Karel. “ I 
didn’t ask her to go fimther than she chose.” 

“ I don’t care how far you’ve gone,” cried Oostrum ; “ but 
here you stop. Do you understand me? Give me yom* 
word.” 

“ No,” said Karel sulkily. 

Amout did not answer immediately. He walked calmly 
towards the door of the pantry, against which hung a couple 
of Spanish canes, such as are used for beating out door-mats. 

“ Look here,” he said, “ I’m stronger than you, of course, 
Donselaar, and 1 don’t want to abuse my strength ; but all I 
say is, you’d better make up your mind to pass me your word 
of honor to leave Keetje untouched henceforth, before that 
clock strikes ten. You won’t leave this kitchen till you’ve 
done it, and you might find yourself the worse for the delay.” 
It wanted five minutes to the hour. Three minutes passed of 
unbroken silence. Aimout was gazing speculatively at the 
pantry door 5 Karel’s eyes were fixed on his boots. 

Then said Karel in a dull voice, “ I give you my word. I 
don’t want to touch the little beast.” 

“ It is like you,” said Amout indignantly, “ first to injure 
the poor thing and then to insult her. Never mind. That is 
settled. But I warn you, van Donselaar, if ever I find you 
up to any of these tricks again, I teU Domini te Bakel, and 
the Domine tells your father.” 

“ TeU, teU,” sneered Karel. 

“ Yes, I teU,” answered Amout composedly. “ Oh, Donse- 
laar,” he went on with a sudden change of voice, “ I’m not go- 
mg to preach. But, now we are here as men together, think 
— ^just think for one moment — of the misery it means for that 


104 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


poor thing ! Ruin — and what ruin ! Don’t do it. Don’t do 
it. Think of your own sister.” 

“ Let me out,” said Karel. 

“ I’m going to. Good-night.” 

Karel stopped as he was passing through the door. “ I have 
got a letter for you from Ghe old un,”’ he said; “I don’t 
always teU lies, you see. Here it is.” He held out a square 
envelope by the tips of liis fingers. Aniout took it, and they 
sepai’ated without another word. 

‘‘And why should the poor child not have her little diver- 
sions, as long as she takes them innocently ? ” cried Keetje’s 
mother, the old lodge-woman. She looked at Betje, and she 
spoke to Betje. But her remarks were intended for Miss 
Varelkamp. Keetje stood by, her giddy curls all lank. She 
cheered up a httle when tliis unexpected view of the case was 
presented to her. “ Is it to be all work and no play ? ” con- 
tinued the portress. “ I suppose you want the child to darn 
your clothes all night as weU as to run your errands all day.” 

“ I ? ” cried Betje, homfied at the idea. “ I woiddn’t have 
her touch my things. You can do as you like, for aU I care, 
Vrouw Janssen. If you’re in such a hurry to have grand- 
children that bear your name, it’s the Juffrouw’s business, not 
mine.” / 

“ Mejuffrouw,” said Vrouw Janssen, appealing to her child’s 
mistress, “ strike me dead if there’s a word of truth in what 
she says. Ask the child herself if she’s ever done anything 
worse than stop to exchange a few words with the gentleman. 
She can’t help it if people find her pleasing. There’s those 
that never had the chance of knowing how it feels.” . 

“ Stop to exchange a few words with the gentleman,” sobbed 
Cornelia. “ Can’t help it if people find her pleasing.” 

“ Silence, child ! ” said Miss Varelkamp sternly. 

“And let those,” cried the mother, “ that never sinned them- 
selves cast the fii’st stone at her.” 

“Then I’U do it, and willing,” interrupted Betje. “I’ve 
never had a kiss from a man since my father died and I a 
babe unborn.” 

“All,” said the old portress, wagging her head) “ the men 


THE PURSUIT OF VICE. 


105 


know what’s what. , It’s no fault of yours, mejuffer, I’U be 
bound, but it’s ill fishing without a bait.” 

“Silence,” said Miss Varelkamp again with great stateliness. 
“ The girl can go, and there’s no more to be said about it. I 
will pay her her week’s wages, and she can bring me baek her 
aprons. Considering the circumstances, I will make no deduc- 
tion for that .hole she burned in one of them last Tuesday, as 
I had threatened to do.” 

“Go!” cried the portress with uplifted hands. “For an 
innocent ‘ How-d’ye-do V to a gentleman she has known as 
a baby ! You’ll think better of it, I am certain, dear 
Juffrouw ” 

“She can go,” interrupted Miss Vai-elkamp, “and there’s 
an end of it. I will keep no woman in my house for an hour 
— nor no man either — against whose morality such a charge 
as this can be rightfully brought. Let them find their fit sm*- 
roundings elsewhere, but this is no place for them.” 

“ Do you mean that — now reaUy ? ” persisted the portress. 

“ I always mean what I say.” 

“Then Lord-a-mercy on you and forgive you your own 
shortcomings, if you’ve any, Juffrouw. And I say for one 
that it’s true enough, as I’ve heard teU, that there’s three kinds 
of human creatures in the world — men, and women, and old 
maids ; and there were no old maids before the Fall.” 

“ No,” slapped in Betje smartly, “ or they’d have told Eve 
to mind her appetites.” 

“ God Almighty must decide for the other side,’^ said Juff- 
rouw Varelkamp very solemnly, as she rose and walked to- 
wards the door, “ but it’s the one sin for which there’s no for- 
giveness on earth, Vrouw Janssen. I am sorry you are not 
a better girl, Keetje, and I’m sure I wish you well. I’ll give 
you a whole extra florin, if you’U promise me not to wear your 
pony hair again.” 

“ We don’t want your florins,” cried the irate mother, “ and 
if the girl comes to the street, it’ll be through your virtue,' 
Miss V arelkamp. Curse your vii’tue, says I.” And she dragged 
Keetje away from the too carefully white-washed little house. 

“It was very dreadful, Betje,” said Miss Varelkamp, wiping 
her pale forehead, “ but I’m sure I did right. Once that sort 


106 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


of thing is in a man or woman, there’s no hope for them. The 
girl is unredeemahly lost. I pity her, after a manner 5 but 
from the moment we make a concession here, we — sink — to — 
the — level — of — the — brutes.” 

“ The sins of the fathers ” began Betje, much impressed 

by her mistress’s solemn manner. But Juffrouw Varelkamp 
had no patience to listen just now. 

“And who was the guilty man, Betje!” she asked with 
unbecoming eagerness. 

“Please, Juffrouw,” replied Betje, “I shoidd like to teU you 
very much. But I daren’t. I promised not to.” 

“Oh, of course, if you promised not to,” said Suzanna • 
quickly. 

“ I shouldn’t mind so much, only he gave me a rix-doUar 
towards mending my shawl. So you see I can’t break my 
word, Juffrouw.” 

“ I see,” said Suzanna. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

arnout’s portmanteau remains unpacked. 

“ Mynheer, 

“ My daughter has informed me, upon her return 
from Overstad, that you took advantage of her position as a 
guest of your aunt Barsselius to make her an offer .of mar- 
riage. Although I understand that you did not press for an 
immediate reply, I consider it more expedient not to delay a 
decision which requires no further postponement. I beg 
therefore to inform you, in my daughtePs name and my own, 
that it is impossible for us — either now or at any future period 
— to entertain your proposal. You are not, and you will 
never become, a fit match for Miss van Donselaar. Had you 
not been conscious of this yourseff, you would certainly have 
communicated with me, instead of with her. I may add, with 
an eye to the delay you suggested, that my health is excellent, 
and that, even were it not so, I shoidd be able to rely upon 


ARNOUT’S PORmANTEAU REMAINS UNPACKED. 107 

my testamentary arrangements and my daughter’s filial affec- 
tion. I remain, yom*s, etc., 

“Diederik van Donselaar. 

" Steenevest, Friday morning, 11.30.” 

Young Arnout sat in his sky-loft and this letter lay on the 
table in front of him. He had given up his room down-stairs, 
by-the-by, to make a little sitting-room for Madame de Mon- 
gelas. 

The contents of the letter had fallen upon him like a thun- 
derbolt. The comparison is trite, but true — always presuming 
the thunderbolt to be a little one. The heaven of his hope 
had seemed, not preternaturally blue, but cahn and unclouded ; 
and the sun, as he thought, had not shown itself unfriendly. 
So that he was not prepared for the deluge. 

He was not vainer than most young men of twenty. He 
might almost have been called modest, considering that he 
must have known — at least in part — what havoc his yellow 
locks and honest blue eyes had made in the hearts of the 
young beauties of the village. He knew that people liked 
him, and he liked them in return. Stern papas and mammas 
were kind to him, not because he was a good parti,” but 
because he was an upright, manly young fellow, with a pleas- 
ant smile and a courteous word for the oldest and the ugliest. 
There was not a young man in the whole province who had 
learned courtesy in so excellent a school as Arnout Oostrmn. 
And in these days, when the rising generation mistake polite- 
ness for affectation, the old people dearly enjoyed those old- 
fasliioned “ egards ” which Arnout had learned from Mejuff- 
rouw Suzanna. 

So he was accustomed to being treated with benevolence. 
Even pompous old Mynheer van Donselaar had never been 
especially disagreeable to him, which was saying a good deal. 
Mynheer van Donselaar had hitherto enjoyed that tranquil 
bhndness which only full-blown self-conceit can bestow. It 
had never entered into his head that Miss Varelkamp’s boy — 
nonage, nothing and nobody — would aspire to the hand of 
Miss Dorothea van Donselaar. 

And, strange to say. Miss Varelkamp, looking at the sub- 


108 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


ject from her point of view, had always considered the match 
the most natural thing in the world. So had more people in 
the village ; hut, then, people of the village did not speak of 
such matters to Mynheer van Donselaar. Mevrouw Barsse- 
lius had set her heart on the aiTangement — regarding it chiefly 
as a pecuniary transaction — and Aimout had come to think it 
a very desirable one. He had considered he was acting, if 
anything, rather handsomely when he vindicated Dorothy’s 
honor before his amit. He had fancied that she appreciated 
his magnanimity. He had clung in these last days with 
gi’owing earnestness, almost anxiety, to her steadfast affection 
— and now 

“ ‘ Had you not been conscious yourself that you are not 

and never can become a fit match for Miss van Donselaar ’ ” 

He colored over his ears, alone in the bare little room. 

‘ My health is excellent, and, even were it not so ’ ” 

He started up with a muttered something that sounded veiy 
like an oath. “ Dorothy must repeat that sentence to me,” he 

thought, “ and if she does, then ” He could not himself 

have filled up the blank. Chaos unutterable ! 

In the first place, then, he must see Dorothy. Unfortu- 
nately he had made an enemy of her brother only half an 
hour ago. He could not help that. He went down-stairs to 
teU liis aunt Suzanna that he could not leave for Overstad 
before to-morrow evening. 

As he passed the viscountess’s open door, she called to him. 
“We wdl read no more naughty books,” she said, “ but when 
the post comes in presently you must bring me up my Figctj'o, 
and I will sing for you your favorite ‘ Robert, toi que j’aime.’ 
You are very d6mod4 to have such a favorite. But come up 
early, child, for I feel lonely to-night.” 

Madame’s nightly pleasure was the arrival of her Figaro. 
She rejoiced over it with great rejoicing. She received but 
few letters ; they were sent on to her from the Overstad Poste 
Restante. 

“ Tante,” said Arnout to Suzanna, “ I cannot leave for Over- 
stad before to-moiTow evening.” 

“ Indeed ! ” answered Suzanna, knitting away as if for very 
hfe. ‘ She disdained to ask his reason. Her heaid, told her 


ARNOUT’S PORTMANTEAU REMAINS UNPACKED. 


109 


that she knew it. She had been np to Madame de Mongelas 
a few moments before with a cup of tea, and she had told 
that lady, not without a certain admixture of spite, that her 
nephew was going to return to liis studies. The French- 
woman, accustomed to distinguish small shades of expression, 
had answered veiy quickly that she regi’etted his departure, 
for that Monsieur Amout was truly charming, but her very 
reticence had sent Miss Suzanna down-stairs with the convic- 
tion that she would keep him if she could. 

Did you look in on Madame de Mongelas on your way 
down-stairs ? ” asked Miss Suzanna aidlessly. “ Do you know 
if she wants anything ? ” 

“ She asked for her paper,” replied Amout. “ It must have 
come. It is very late, nearly half-past ten.” 

‘‘A nice conclusion to a weU-spent day,” said Suzanna bit- 
terly. ‘‘ There, take it to her, do. It is on the table. Jakob 
te Bakel teUs me it is fid! of dirty things. Read it together.” 

Amout stood near his aunt. He could not understand her 
manner. It made him very uncomfortable. And this night 
of aU others he had need of affection. He bent down and took 
her hand timidly to lift it to his lips. She withdrew it hastily. 

“ Leave me,” she said in her harsh voice. “ Good-night.” 

Her tone offended him, and he ran up angrily to Madame 
de Mongelas. 

“ Good boy ] ” said that lady, with a sunny smile. “ I will 
sing to you first, to reward you. We have stiU half an hour 
before your aunt’s bedtime. Do you know that you good 
people go to sleep just when the great world of Paris, the 
real world, is waking up ? AUons. ' Robert, toi que j’aime.’ 
It makes me feel fifty at the veiy least.” 

She sang divinely — or so it seemed to him. Never before 
had he heard such a passion of tears in a human voice. He 
forgot his troubles as he listened. Wlien the last words had 
died^away, he felt how stupid would be any adjective he could 
command, and so he merely stammered that there must be 
other verses yet. 

She cast a radiant glance of approval at him and sang the 
whole air over again. “ Do you know,” she said, ‘‘that you are 
delicious ? I have been made love to a hundi’ed times — how 


no 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


can we help it, nous autres femmes ?— but I have never been 
admu-ed for the sake of admii-ation oidy. You are a revela- 
tion to me, mon petit chevalier, of a something in woman I 
did not know existed before. Do you understand me ? ” 

“ No,” he said, troubled in the very depth of his heart. 

“That is why you are delicious,” she answered softly. 

“ Never understand me. Why are you not a Catholic ? You 
would have comprehended the Madonna. Shall I sing you 
one song more ? ” 

'A 

Miss Varelkamp sat in the room down-stairs. She knitted 
fast by the light of her white china petroleum lamp. She did 
not even pause to catch one of her natural enemies, a moth 
that was fluttering round and round the green shade. Betje 
had come in and laid down on the table her slate with the hst 
of the day’s expenses and the odd cents that were left. That 
was always the signal for Miss Varelkamp to open her Bible 
and read the nightly chapter. Miss Varelkamp had not 
looked up. 

She knitted yet faster. Once or twice, at long inteiwals, a 
tear roUed leisurely down her yellow cheek. Then she winked 
her eyelid very rapidly a number of times, but she never 
stopped her knitting. 

Her thoughts were of Arnout. She was jealous, so be it. 
But she was deeply hurt and deeply sorrowful. She told her- 
self that she could have given him up to Dorothy — she would 
show that she could do that — or to any other woman whom 
he loved. But there could not be a question of even a passing 
“ entichement ” for this Frenchwoman. Only a few hours ago 
the boy had repeatedly spoken of his engagement to Dorothy. 
It was merely the viscoimtess’s gi’ace and her beautifid singing 
and her knowledge of the world that delighted him. And 
because he enjoyed these, and because she amused him, he 
cast every wish of his aunt’s to the wind. Her heart trembled 
for the boy. He was worldly ; he loved the world and its 
pleasures. He was fleshly ; only that morning he had courted 
death in fun. He was weak ; a woman’s smde could rule him, 
even when he cared not for the woman. 

This trouble was not a new one to Suzanna. For tlie last 


ARNOITT’S PORTMANTEAU REJIAINS UNPACKED. 


Ill 


year or two it had ])eeii gi-owing upon lier, as she anxiously 
watelied Ai-nout’s career at the University. Many times she 
had compared him to Jakob te Bakel with a sinking heart. 
His soul! his soul! She, the strong woman, bom to act, 
eager to do something, imperious to impose her vdll — she felt 
her powerlessness here. And she stmck her impotent yearn- 
ings against the rocks until they fell bleeding to the ground. 
From hope deferred, from prayer unanswered, she rebelled 
against the silent Deity. And unconsciously, while she vainly 
demanded that her nephew might leam to love Him, the hate 
of God invaded her heart. 

“ I am very wicked, ” she repeated to herself this evenmg. 
“ I wrong Madame de Mongelas, and I know that I do so. 
She herself has told me that I wrong my own nephew, and 
she has offered to go of her own accoimt. I am most unjust 
to them ; I am a selfish, wicked old woman. I have loved 
him thi-ough aU these years, but it has always been for my 
own sake, not for his. Nothing could be more honorable than 
her treatment of me this morning. And it has barely changed 
my opinion of her. I break the ninth commandment in my 
own heai-t every day — and the tenth.” 

She went on with her self-abasement, but it was not of the 
kind which is so very enjoyable. Gradually it led her to mag- 
nify Madame de Mongelas’s vii*tues till she became inaccurate, 
as was so often the case, from her anxiety not to be unjust. 
And she remembered, with a faint glow of pleasure, how 
implicit she had proved her own trust to be in Aniout’s honor 
only that morning. “ StiU, I am very glad the woman goes 
on Monday,” she said to herself with a sigh. 

She rang her handbell and read out to Betje with unfalter- 
ing voice the grievous complaint of the fifty-fifth Psalm : 
“ For it was not an enemy that reproached me ; then I could 
have borne it : . . . but it was thou, a man mine equal, my 
guide, and mine acquaintance. ... The words of his mouth 
were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart. . . .” 

She thought the whole contents of the Psalm so remarkably 
appropriate to the couple up-stairs, that she felt it her duty to 
say at the close, “ Let us apply these warnings to our own 
hearts, Betje, and not to those of others.” 


112 


AN OLD MAID’S LOATE. 


“ Yes, indeed,” said Betje. “ ^ He shall not suffer the right- 
eous to be moved.’ And I do hope you’ll sleep, Juffronw, in 
spite of aU your troubles, which are manifold ; though I don’t 
doubt you won’t. Grood-night.” 

Juffrouw Varelkamp stood on the landing for several min- 
utes irresolute. She wanted to interrupt the singing, and she 
was too proud to do it. At last she shook her head and 
opened her bedroom door. It was past eleven when Arnout 
went up to his room, still humming a tune. 

Then the humming stopped. There lay M5ntiheer van Don- 
selaaBs envelope on the table. The envelope recalled the let- 
ter, hid away in his pocket-book. Had he forgotten the letter ? 
No. 

Yet suddenly in his firmament the golden glow was gone. 

“ I must see Dorothy to-morrow,” he said to himself ; “ and 
I must hear from her own lips that she won’t have me. I 
can’t believe it. Oh, Dorothy ! Dorothy ! Orace, giAce pour 
toi-meme — et pour moi.” 


CHAPTER XX. 

REJECTED. 

“ One moment ! ” he gasped out hurriedly. “ One moment ! 
One question ! Is what your father wiates yoiu* answer or his ? 
Yes, a pound of tea. Oh, any price. TeU me that, Dorothy ; 
that only.” 

He had asked to see Mynheer van Donselaar up at SteenA 
vest ; he had been refused. He had asked to see Miss van Don- 
selaar ; she was out. He had dawdled for an horn* in the vil- 
lage street till she drove up in her pony-chair. He had fol- 
lowed her into the grocer’s, and now there was no escape for 
her. For one moment — one decisive moment — ^he held her 
fast. The fat old shopkeeper was leisurely putting together 
the list she had handed him. TOl it was ready she cduld not 
fly. • 

‘‘The tea?” said Arnout, wliite and red by turns. “Oh, 


REJECTED. 


113 


thank you, yes ; and some of the stuff in that ^ar yonder, right 
up at the top, in the corner. Dorothy, answer me, for God’s 
sake — in French. Is it yom* answer? Do you refuse me? 
Speak ! ” 

“Araout,” she began, this is not the place ” 

“ Is there another ? Shall I ever see you again ? May I 
come up to Steenevest ? ” 

N — no,” she said in sudden alai-m. “ But what do you 
want of me, Ai-nout ? ” 

“I have told you. Answer me. Do you love me? ‘Yes’ 
or ‘No’?” 

“Have you not read my fathers letter? Wliat other an- 
swer can I give ? He refuses his consent, Ai-nout ; and I can 
only say that — he refuses.” 

“ Is there anything else I can get for you. Mynheer ? ” 

“ Yes, yes ; confound it — a pound of — of that vei-miceUi. 
He refuses. But you — but you ? ” 

The little shop was veiy dark and stuffy. She tinned away 
her face. 

“ Dear Arnout,” she said, “ I am my father’s daughter. If 
he refuses, what else can I say than that ? ” ' 

“That you refuse me also. You won’t many me! You 
won’t love me ! You won’t — you won’t ! ” 

“ I could not many you without my fathei-’s consent,” she 
said. “ You know that very well.” 

“And you won’t teU me you love me ? ” 

“ No,” she said clearly, lifting her head haughtily, “ I will not. 
I will answer no other question you can put me. I have said 
enough. My father has forbidden me to speak to you, and 
henceforth I must obey him.” 

“ Then this is a farewell ? ” he stammered. “A finale ? ” 

“ I must do as my father teUs me. What can I do else ? ” 

He did -not answer. He did not look at her again. He 
walked towards the entry. 

“ Shall I send the things. Mynheer ? ” said the pleased shop- 
man. “ It is a large parcel.” 

He did not hear him. He turned back towards Dorothy. 
“ Remember,” he said, standing close beside her and still speak- 
ing hun’iedly in French, “ that at this moment you held my 

b 


114 


AN OLD MAID’S IX)VE. 


fate in your hands and that you broke it — hke tliis.” He bent 
the stout walking-stick which he held in his hands and snapped 
it in two. He di’opped the pieces at her feet — and was gone. 

Dorothy Donselaar fled from the surprised glances of the 
shopkeeper and his assistant. It was a good thing that her 
old horse knew the way and picked it out for himself ; for, 
during the flrst few moments of her homewai’d di’ive, she 
could not see the street. 

“ I shall return to Overstad this evening,” said Amout to 
liimself as he walked rapidly down the road. “ I shall give up 
aU my club amusements, and shall work from morning to 
night. And when I have passed the most brilliant examina- 
tions and everybody is singing my praises, then we shall see 
what Mynheer van Donselaar wfll say. And then it vdU be 
my turn to answer, ‘No, thank you. No, thank you. Miss 
Dorothy Donselaar ; I don’t think I can mairy a coquette.’ ” 

He was very angry with Dorothy. She should feel the 
weight of his anger some day. But he was also angry with 
himself, and very miserable. “ I shall go to Overstad,” he re- 
peated, “ and work hard.” 

As he reached the cottage, full of liis many wrongs, he saw 
that Madame de Mongelas was standing at her window and 
beckoning to him. He went up to her, with an ill grace. He 
wanted to be alone. 

“Your aunt Barsselius has come,” she said, “and she is go- 
ing to take you back with her. They say you must retm-n to 
Overstad this evening. Are you obedient, mon preux cheva- 
her ? ” 

“Obedient?” he answered indignantly. “I am not a child. 
I am going back of my own account.” 

“ Indeed ! ” she said qidckly. “ That is hardly polite. But 
I suppose I have scarcely a right to expect politeness. You 
should not have spoilt me hitherto.” 

“ I am not impolite,” replied Amout ; “lam truthful. What 
do you care whether I go or stay ? ” 

“ I ? ” she said. “ What should I care ? ” She lay back in a 
cloud of white mushn, her magnificent hair coiled over her 
haughty head. The hands were toying with a pair of purple 


REJECTED. 


115 


roses. And with the indolent, di-eamy lustre of her half- veiled 
eyes she seemed to enfold him and hold him imprisoned, pal- 
pitating, fluttering, he knew not why. “What should I 
care ? ” she said. 

Then suddenly her manner changed. She sat up. Her eyes 
opened wide, and flashed fire. 

“Do not go,” she said. “Wait till Monday; that is aU I 
ask. I myself shall leave this house on Monday for good. 
Wait tfll then — for my sake.” 

“But, madame,” objected Amout impatiently, “if my aunts 
want me to go ” 

“ Oh, most dutiful of nephews, that is just why I desire you 
to stay. Do not laugh at me. I will teU you ; we have been 
such good friends. I am afraid of your aunt Suzanna. It is 
foohsh, it is absurd. Granted, but I cannot help myself. I 
am afraid of her. She can look at me of late in a manner ! — 
ah, she would kfll me if she coidd. You laugh at me. That 
is not weU. I am weak ; I am nervous. Do not leave me alone 
with her, mon ami. She will do me a mischief.” 

“ But, madame ” began Amout again, this time in indig- 

nant amazement. 

“ I know, I know aU you would say. But you cannot con- 
quer my presentiment. She is very angry with me, the old 
lady. She is jealous. For she fancies I have stolen your 
heart away from her. As if you would give that young heart 
of yours to an old woman like me ! ” 

She waited for a few moments, plucking nervously at one 
of her roses. Then she said: “WeU?” 

StUl Amout did not spe^. 

“ Tiens ! ” she cried ; and she flung her flowers into his lap. 
“ Take them and go. Prends les et va-t-en ! ” She had 
dropped suddenly into the familiar “ thou.” Amout started 
as if she had stmck him. “ Go,” she cried with mcreasing 
anger. “ Thou art right. Why should I dare to retain thee ? 
Laugh at me with thine aunt. TeU her I was afraid of her. 
But keep the flowers. Keep them, Amout, because I gave 
them to thee and asked thee to preserve them.” 

She got up, slowly and painfuUy. She stumbled towards the 
window and stood looking away. 


116 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


I am a foolish woman,” she said presently ; “ not brave as 
you think. I have very few friends. And I fancied you were 
one of them and would perhaps do what I asked you, because 
it was I that asked.” 

Could it be that her voice faltered ? Could it be that she had 
called him Arnout? He stole a timid glance at her. She 
stood there, enshrined in her regal lovehness. And yet — were 
those tears in her wistful eyes ? 

He rose up and came towards her. “ Madame,” he said, and 
liis voice was gi’ave and sad, “ if you are unhappy, be sure that 
I also am not one of the favored ones of fortune. There is 
that sjunpathy between us, at any rate. Do not let us add to 
each other’s troubles. I will stay if you wish me to.” 

She turned to liim with ripphng smiles of grateful approval. 
“ You are better to me than I thought,” she said. “ It is a pity 
we must separate so soon. Je crois que vous m’auriez aimee 
un de ces jom’s.” She looked at him for a fraction of a second 
— an instant of sdence — then she added quickly, “ Not aimee 
d’amour, you understand, aimee d’amiti^.” 

He bowed over her hand, ashamed of himseK, of his awk- 
wardness, of his blushes, his disappointment, his very shame. 

“ I do that already,” he said. 

And then suddenly he pressed one kiss upon her hand, and 
broke away from her and left her standing there. 

As he was passing through the door, she called him back. 
“ Arnout ! ” 

He swung the door ajar. By what cruel chance did Su- 
zanna, leaving her own bedroom at the moment, hear that too 
significant word and stand transfixed ? 

“Arnout ! ” 

“ Leave me till this evening, Arnout, to decide whether you 
go or stay. Do not think me fickle. I cannot explain further. 
You must not speak to me again till then. This evening, after 
dinner, your aunt Barssehus is sure to come up and ask me to 
sing. Then, if I sing— let me see — ‘ Eobert, toi que j’aime,’ you 
must go quickly with her, and— and we shall never see each 
other again ; but if I sing — shall we say, ‘ Carmen ’ ? — ^then I 
have need of you, and you must stay till Monday. Is it 
agi-eed ? ” 


“ CARMEN. 


117 


“ But yes, if you mhU,” said Arnout. 

Miss Varelkamp had heard the last sentence or two. She 
went back into her room and closed the door. 

Left alone, Madame de Mongelas sank back upon her sofa. 
For a long time she sat still, gazing intently at the hand on 
which yet lay the marks of Aimout’s kiss. I cannot,” she 
said. And then — most unexpected of all things to herself — 
she burst into tears. 


CHAPTER XXI. 

“ CARMEN.” 

“ Mark my words,” said the Widow Barsselius, settling her- 
self comfortably in her easy-chair, and contentedly sipping her 
cherry-brandy, “ ay, mark my words, Suzanna, it is the ‘ Cheval 
de Troyes ’ which you have fetched into your house. I said so 
to Dorothy Donselaar, the day we first came to see j^our 
Frenchwoman. You are always fetching that horse into your 
house, and one day it wiU eat off your head.” 

Suzanna was not listening. 

“ I say that one day it will ruin you,” said the widow in a 
louder tone, and bending forward as she poised her glass be- 
tween her fat fingers. Her gold watch-chain lay massive on 
her damson-silk bosom. Her purple chin wobbled to and fi’o. 
“ You fetched it in when you himted up that boy Amout and 
took him into your house. Heaven knows why. I remember 
saying to my poor husband at the time, ‘ Suzanna has brought 
home the cheval de Troyes,’ and I remember his answering, 
‘Yes, the cheval de Trois,’ meaning you and his mother and — 
and Donselaar.” 

“ Hush,” said Suzanna, suddenly alert. 

“ Oh, well, there’s nobody here j and I must say I can’t abide 
secrets. This one has lasted quite long enough. And when 
will you teU Amout about it, Suzanna ? ” 

“ Never ! ” said Suzanna. 

“And he still thinks his mother was our sister?” 


118 


AN OLD JIAID’S LOVE. 


“ Yes.” 

“ He is sure to find out all about it some day.” 

“ I am old, and perhaps, before that time, I shall be dead.” 

“ Old ! You are barely sixty ! Please remember, when you 
talk about age, that you are only four years older than I. You 
can hve for twenty years yet, and I am sure I intend to. But 
I thought, Suzanna, you (hdn’t approve of lies ? ” 

“ This is not a lie,” said Suzanna, much agitated ; “ it is an 
article of religion. Do not let us talk of it again. All that 
was settled long ago.” 

“ But I want to talk of it,” persisted Mevrouw Barsselius, 

“ and you mustn’t contradict me. Doctor Flesch says it is very 
bad for me to b& contradicted. I want to know whether Ar- 
nout thinks he is going to have my money.” 

“ No,” said Suzanna, “ he doesn’t think of it at aU.” 

“And why shouldn’t he have it?” objected the aggravating 
widow. “ Why shouldn’t he ? What am I to do with it ? I 
like the boy! I like his impudence. I know he calls me 
‘ Tante Croesus ’ behind my back. Why don’t he do it to my 
face ? He’U be a young man still when he gets my money, if 
I leave it to him. About forty to forty-five, I calculate.”, 

“ Yes,” assented Suzanna with inexpressible weariness. She 
was not thinldng of “ Tante Croesus.” She was thinking of 
Madame de Mongelas. 

“ Have him down, Suzann^a. You are not good company. 
And I am accustomed to being amused. Barssehus was a very 
funny man. I wish I had brought Bijou ; he is all the com- 
pany I have nowadays. He is not as good as Barssehus, of 
course. You needn’t think I’m comparing them. But when 
you haven’t got what you love, you must love what you’ve 
got, you see.” 

“ I don’t know where Amout is,” said Suzanna. 

“Oh, up with your Frenchwoman, I don’t doubt. Tell 
Betje to look for him there. Trust his father’s son to spot a 
pretty woman. If you had had my knowledge of the world, 
sister, you would have thought twice before you admitted that 
papist into your house.” 

“Amout is the soul of honor,” cried Suzanna indignantly, 
though with a sinking heart. “ But, as for that, I couldn’t 


CARMEN.’ 


119 


help myself. The creature was in the spare room before I 
could tell what she wanted.” 

Mevroiiw Barssehiis sagely shook her head. “ It aU depends 
on tact,” she said. Would you give me just a spoonful more 
brandy? I repeat that I like Arnout. But, as for your stu- 
dent of theology, that was the greatest mistake you ever made 
in yoiu- life, Suzanna. And you have made a good many. 
It is the last thing the boy is fit for.” 

“ God knows I acted for the best,” said poor Miss Varel- 
kamp. 

“ God prefers us to use our senses,” cried the widow testily. 
“ It is for that He gave them to us. But Aniont will make a 
better clergyman than your precious friend te Bakel, for he 
won’t even pretend to mean what he says. There he is in the 
gai’den, with a pair of magnificent roses. Bought or begged 
for the viscountess, I’U be bound. Come in here, Arnout, and 
teU me the last news about Dorothy.” 

Ai’iiout came in, and immediately Miss Varelkamp recog- 
nized his roses. They were the same which Madame de Monge- 
las had sent down Betje to buy at the door that morning. 

“^ome and teU me about Dorothy,” said Mevrouw Barsse- 
lius. “ It stOl wants half an hoiu till dinner, and your aunt is 
remarkably didl to-day. She don’t listen to a word I say, but 
goes to sleep with her eyes open. How is Dorothy ? ” 

“ Well,” said Arnout. 

‘‘You may thank me for that little arrangement, my boy. 
If you many Dorothy it wiU be o^ving to me. And I hope 
you feel properly gi’ateful.” 

“ Oh yes, tha^ you,” said Arnout. 

Madame Barsselius looked up quickly. “ Don’t sneer,” she 
said ; “ I can’t endure sneering. And there is probably least 
of aU cause for it here. The girl is a good girl, a nice girl, 
a sweet girl ; and she will have a pretty little pot of money, 
which you find you want. Master Arnout, when you sit in 
your parsonage with a yearly income of a baby and eighty 
pounds.” 

“ Miss van Donselaar has refused me,” said Arnout gloom- 
ily ; “ she is going to maiTy herself and her money to some- 
body else.” 


120 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


“ Gracious powers ! ” cried Suzanna. Ugly scarlet stains 
came creeping up her neck and round her sharp chin. 

“ If that is true/’ said Mevrouw Barsselius bluntly, “ it is 
your own fault, and you are a fool.” 

“ Oh no,” said Arnout with a tragic air, “ only a man with 
a heart for women to tread upon at their wiU.” 

“ Tut, tut ! ” laughed the widow, “ what melodramatic nib- 
bish ! And, after all, your many words mean the same as 
my one. Your Frenchwoman is not wholesome for you, Ar- 
nout; you talk like a gentleman out of the Heme des deux 
Mondes. Only you should not have said ' tread,’ but ‘ tram- 
ple.’ You must come along back with me to Overstad and 
work for your degree. And then, in a month or two, we shall 
have you paying visits with Dorothy.” 

“ Yes, Arnout, you must go back to Overstad to-night,” said 
Suzanna. 

Arnout shrugged his shoulders. “ I shall not marry Doro- 
thy because I go back to Overstad,” he said. “ In fact, I think 
I may as well stop here. I shall never marry Dorothy. I teU 
you she has definitely refused me.” 

“ No, no ; go back to-night,” reiterated Suzanna earnestly. 

“Of course,” chimed in the widow Barsselius. “I came 
here expecting you to accompany me. Yoi\ don’t think I’m 
going aU that way alone in the dark with a drunken coach- 
man. He is sure to be dinmk in the evening. And you must 
certainly come along with me.” 

“ Let us have dinner first,” said Arnout ; “ we can settle 
about it afteinvards.” 

“ I have settled it,” said ‘Mevrouw. And, then, for an hour, 
she talked exclusively of her own affairs. It was a fortunate 
thing. It prevented her noticing that she was the only person 
who did justice to the meal. 

“Arnout,” said Suzanna hurriedly, as she drew her nephew 
aside for a moment after they had risen from table, “Arnout, 
this is not true, this about Dorothy ? TeU me it is not true ! ” 

“ It is true,” he answered sulkily. 

The certitude was a great blow to the old woman, but she 
recovered with an effort her outward cahn. “ You must leave 
this house to-night,” she went on ; “Ai-nout, I have done what 


" CARMEN.’ 


121 


I could for yoli during all these years. I — do not let us speak 
of that. If you have any feelings of love or gratitude, or — 
or kindness in your heart for me, you will go with Tante Bars- 
seUus to-night.” He would have answered, surprised, but stiU 
more annoyed, by the earnestness of her manner, but she 
waved him away from her and shrank back into the kitchen. 

Juffrouw,” said Betje, “I have been in this house for one 
and thirty years, and I thought I was as much one of your be- 
longings as your blessed father’s old secretaire ; but I warn 
you, Juffrouw, either that Frenchwoman must go — or I ! ” 

Betje had no doubt it would be the Frenchwoman. 

Dear, dear, what has she been doing to you, Betje ? ” asked 
poor JMiss Varelkamp. 

“ To me ? I’d like to ask her to try it on,” answered Betje 
menacingly; ‘‘it’s you I’m thinking of, you poor suffering 
woman. And you needn’t go fancying I mind the extra work. 
But I see what I see, and I won’t see it any longer. There ! ” 

“Even the servant pities me,” thought Miss Varelkamp. 
The discovery was very humiliating to her. She went back 
to the sitting-room. Mevrouw Barsselius was asleep with a 
large handkerchief over her face. 

The little house was very still, heavy, as it seemed to Su- 
zanna, under the weight of a coming catastrophe. 

“ Now bring her down ! ” cried the widow, waking up after 
half an hour of sonorous repose. “ She is very amusing, and 
you are all in the dumps, Suzanna. I came on purpose to see 
the vicomtesse. And you promised me she should come down 
after dinner.” 

“ She is coming,” said Suzanna, rousing herself from her 
meditations. 

“ Is it true, as Arnout says, that the doctor permits her to 
try for the first time this evening whether she can walk down 
your stairs ? ” 

“ Yes, it is true,” said Suzanna. “ I wiU go up and fetch 
her,” she added. And she went to Madame de Mongelas. 

Madame received her hostess with a quiet, guarded smile. 
She was di-essed with even more than her usual studied ele- 
gance, in a robe of the palest silvery green, such as only a 


122 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


very handsome brunette could wear. It closed in smooth per- 
fection round the soft graces of her figm-e, and fell in billowy 
masses at her feet. As she rose — stiU painfully, and, ^on that 
very account, with the more midulating stateliness of move- 
ment — the shimmer of a hundi-ed silver ripples played across 
the yielding material and seemed to lose itself in the white 
fiduess of her flesh and the coiling Splendors of her hair. Su- 
zanna, to whom black silk with a velvet border had ever been 
the height of luxury, was moved beyond her quiet self to a cry 
of spontaneous admiration. Madame de Mongelas received it 
graciously. Coming from this woman to that, it was surely, 
in its very spontaneity, as great a compliment as the heart of 
even a Parisian could desire. 

“ I have made a ‘ brin de toilette,’ ” said madame half apolo- 
getically. “ You see, it is a feast-day to me. I hope you do 
not t hin k me too fine, mademoiselle. The material is quite 
simple, if you come to look at it, and it is the only evening 
dress I have with me.” 

“ My nephew will pay you the proper comphments, madame,” 
said Suzanna ; “ I came to help you down-stairs.” 

And so, leaning on the bony old woman’s strong arm, 
madame began the painful descent. The staircase, like that of 
even the best Dutch houses, was steep as the ladder that leads 
to heaven. They went slowly, step by step. It cuts like a 
knife,” thought the Frenchwoman, as she pressed heavily on 
Mejuffrouw Varelkamp. 

“ Madame,” said Suzanna suddenly, as they rested for a mo- 
ment halfway, “ you will leave me the boy. He is all I have. 
You must not take him from me.” 

“ But, mademoiselle ” gasped Madame de Mongelas, be- 

tween pain and amazement. 

“ Oh, I know what you would say. I know it is nothing. 
You mean nothing. Nor does he. But you must not make 
trouble between us. Leave me the boy — he is all I have.” 

“I do not understand you,” answered madame rather 
haughtily. “We have aiTanged that I quit your house on 
Monday. You have kindly permitted me to stay till then.” 

“ The truth ! the truth I ” cried Suzanna desperately. “ Let 
him go in peace to-night.” 


“ CARMEN.' 


123 


A dangerous light flared into madame’s eyes. “ The truth ! ” 
she answered ; “ so be it. Leave him me till Monday, and you 
will never hear of me again.” 

“ Why ? ” asked Suzanna. 

“ Why ? A woman’s why. Because I want it. Because I 
wiU not have him taken from me thus. Because it is an in- 
sult that you offer me, Mademoiselle Varelkamp.” 

They had reached the bottom of the staii-s. “ He does not 
think of you,” said Suzanna. 

“Reason the more to leave me in peace,” answered the 
Frenchwoman, as they passed into the sitting-room. 

“Ah, Madame la Vicomtesse,” cried Mevrouw Barssehus. 
She started up and began busthng about the sofa and the sofa 
cushions. “Amout, get Madame la Vicomtesse that little shawl 
for her feet. What are you staring at, you booby ? Did you 
never see a handsome woman in a beautiful dress before ? ” 

“ You are too amiable, madame,” said the invalid, laughing. 
“You will spoil me for my female compatriots. We are not 
accustomed to compliments from each other, unless there is a 
powder in the jam ! ” 

“Humph,” replied Mevrouw Barsselius. “A woman can’t 
pay another woman a compliment. It is either a simple truth 
or a simple lie.” 

“ De mieux en mieux. But you are simply charming. How 
is it possible, dear madame, that they say the Batavians — man- 
quent d’esprit ? ” 

“ Vicomtesse,” said Mevrouw Barsselius sharply, “ don’t laugh 
at me. I know the world. You must not think we are all 
provincials here. I can tell you I read the Revue des deux 
Mondes quite regularly, and I am on the height of what passes 
in Paris and in France.” 

“ The Revue des deux Mondes, repeated the vicomtesse, now 
comfortably installed among her cushions. , “ Oh yes, the 
Revue I That is very serious. You know why it is called des 
deux Mondes, do you not ? ” 

“Yes, certainly; Europe and America, of course.” 

“Oh, that was half a century ago,” said the vicomtesse 
sweetly ; “ they caU it the Revue des deux Mondes nowadays be- 
cause the serious articles are only intended for the monde sa- 


124 


AN OLD JIAID’S LOVE. 


vant, and the stories are only fit for the demi-monde, so that 
both of them get their share.” 

“What is the ‘ daymi-monde ’ ? ” queried Suzanna inno- 
cently. 

“ The daymi-monde,” repeated Madame de Mongelas. “ But, 
mademoiselle, you yourself suggest the answer. C’est le 
monde qui s’est demis. The women who are socially out of 
joint.” 

Suzanna asked no more, and Mevrouw Barsselius, indignant 
at being left out of the conversation, and anxious, perhaps, 
to prove her claims to Batavian “ esprit,” fell in with a remark 
that the weather was fine. 

Madame de Mongelas was busy with some old-fashioned 
tatting. “ Yes,” she said, “ I think you malign your own cli- 
mate. Monsieur Amout told me that you had eight months 
of rain, and four months of bad weather. Decidedly, he wants 
patriotism, does Monsieur Arnout.” 

Arnout woke up at the sound of liis name. He had been 
sitting stupidly staring at the vicomtesse since she came in. 
Perhaps she purposely roused him. 

“ Yes, but this is not our own sunshine,” he said ; “it is only 
lent. And Nature is the veriest usurer to us Dutch people. 
WTien she brings us, at rare intervals, a week of foreign sun- 
shine from somewhere, she always makes us pay for it in two 
months of steady rain.” 

“ Now, is that true. Miss Suzanna ? ” asked madame. “ Your 
nephew— does he not see things in black ? ” 

“ God made the rain,” answered Suzanna curtly. She got 
up and began walking up and down the room. She could not 
bear to remain sitting thus opposite that woman in her tri- 
umphant beauty, and the foolish boy at her feet. She was 
choking for breath. 

Mevrouw Barsselius turned round to look at her. She could 
not continue tramping to and fro. She sat down again in the 
old green chair. Would Mevi’ouw Barsselius never go? 
With every moment of delay Suzanna’s fever of anxiety in- 
creased. 

“ Is your box ready, Amout ? ” she asked — almost hissed. 

“ Yes,” said Arnout fiercely — hke a dog at bay. 


“CARMEN.” 


125 


“ Tnie,” it is getting time for me to be thinking of paeking 
up,” said Mewonw Barsselius. “And when shall I see yon 
again, vicomtesse? Shall I send you some more gi-apes on 
Monday? They were veiy expensive, you knowj but they 
are getting cheaper now.” 

“ I am infinitely gi-atefnl to yon, madame,” rephed the vi- 
comtesse, intent on her tatting, “but I shall be gone from 
here on Monday. You know — do you not? — that I am go- 
ing away ? ” 

“Indeed! and where to?” asked Mevi-ouw, with a shai-p 
look at her sister. 

“Ah, who shall say ? I must see.” 

“ But you will let me know, vicomtesse ? ” 

“ Perhaps yes ; perhaps no. It wiU depend.” 

“ Whereupon ? ” 

“ On many things. Am I still to sing before yon go ? Be- 
cause, if so, madame, I had better do it at once.” She stretched 
out her hand to her guitar. 

Mevrouw Barsselius felt altogether at sea. There was some- 
thing in the air, and she could not teU what. She gazed from 
one to another. Nothing to be read on either face but armed 
expectation. She would question Amout on their way home. 

“ Yes, yes,” she said ; “ one song, if you are not too tired, 
while the boy brings down his carpet-bag. And then it ap- 
pears that you and I, Amout, must take leave of Madame de 
Mongelas.” 

Ai-nout made a movement as if to rise. He looked almost 
suppheatingly at the beautiful Frenchwoman. The look said, 
“ I am unhappy ; I do not care. Do what you wiU.” 

“And is your nephew reaUy going to leave you, mademoi- 
selle ? ” said the vicomtesse with a smile. 

“ Yes,” answered Suzanna, with a ring of quiet triumph hi 
her voice. “ He must resume his studies.” 

“ You will miss him,” said Madame de Mongelas. “ But if 
we are to part, he must hear my song. He would not be so 
impolite as to run away as I begin.” 

Her guitar was ready. She stmck a few preliminary notes. 

“Yes, yes; let him hear the song,” cried Mevi*ouw Bars- 
selius, clapping her hands, “ Sing us the ‘ Robert,’ Madame 


126 


AN OLD MAID'S LOVE. 


la Vicomtesse, that you sang so well the other day. It gives 
me recollections of when I was a girl.” 

The vicomtesse smiled yet more sweetly. She bent her head 
without speaking. Then she finished her prelude, and then 
she lifted up her voice and sang : 

“ L’amour est enfant de Boheme, 

II n’a jamais, jamais connu de loi. 

Si tu ne m’aimes pas, je t’aime, 

Et si je t’aime — prends garde a toi.” 

She sang the weU-known words quietly, without any of the 
effrontery which is so often attached to them, but with a re- 
strained menace that rendered them far more impressive. She 
was gazing vaguely into the distance, beyond the head of Me- 
juffrouw Suzanna Varelkamp, out of the homely, common- 
place little room, into far-reaching vistas, perchance of a brill- 
iant future, perchance of a past on which the sunhght yet 
played. She sang them over and over again, caressing them, 
clinguig to them, taking possession of them and making them 
her own — and then yet again, lingei’ingly, masterfully, in sim- 
ple, conscious triumph — as she turned her quiet gaze on the 
young man at her feet. 

“ Et si je t’aime, prends garde a toi.” 

Suzanna, pale and breathless, with the recollection of the 
agreement she had overheard still hammering at her brain — 
Suzanna caught that look, and Arnout’s answer. Her first 
impulse was to fly from the room — anywhere — out of their 
sight. She crushed it down. She even laid aside her knit- 
ting and hstened calmly. 

“ A pretty song,” she said at the end, 

“ Cliarming ! Exquisite ! How beautifid you sing, Madame 
la Vicomtesse ! ” cried the Barsselius. “ You must give me an- 
other opportunity of hearing you. I am so sorry the can-iage 
is waiting, and that it is already so late. But you must leave 
me yom’ address on Monday, and I will come and see you. 
And you must stay with me later on, after all. Oh yes, of 
com*se you must stay with me. We can settle it together. 
Come, Arnout ; now get your hat.” 

“ I am not going,” said Ai-nout 5 “ I intend to stay.” 


“ CARMEN/ 


127 


Aunt Suzanna said notliiug. Amit Croesus, ali*eady occu- 
pied witli her shawl and her cap aud her false-front and her 
galoshes, stopped and stared at him. 

“ Not going ? ” she said. The child is demented. Suzanna, 
teU him to fetch his things.” 

“ I have told him,” said Suzanna, “ eveiything. I shall tell 
him nothing more.” 

Mevrouw Barssehus completed her manifold arrangements 
with a good deal of fussing and blustering. She said noth- 
ing, however, about the matter in hand, till she was ready. 

“Good-bye, my dear vicomtesse,” she remarked, standing 
in the doorway, with aU her wraps and her bundles about her. 
“Good-bye, good-bye. And now, Amout, it is quite late 
enough. Come along with me this instant — do you hear — or 
I shall never forgive you your disobedience. That is not an 
empty sentence, such as people constantly use. I mean it. I 
mean it fuHy. If I drive to Overstad alone to-night, you will 
have reason to repent it to your dying hour. Do you under- 
stand me f ” 

“ Yes, Tante Crcesus” said Arnout. 

“ I see you do,” she continued, nodding her head, not with- 
out a certain admiration of his “ cheek.” And she waddled 
slowly down the httle garden path. 

“ Let me help you,” said Amout’s voice at her elbow. And 
he lifted her into the carriage with a mighty effort of his young 
strength, as he had done these many times. 

“ Bah ! ” she said, “ I shall never forgive you. I have said 
it. But I cannot deny that you have pluek in you. You have 
none of the Donselaar coffee-blood. Good-night.” 

It was Amout who helped up Madame de Mongelas, Miss 
Varelkamp keeping stern watch over them. Not a word was 
spoken by either of the three. On the landing they separated, 
and each went to his or her own apartment — also without a 
word. 


128 


AN OLD JMAID'S LO\"E. 


CHAPTER XXII. 

SUZANNA’S ORDEAL. 

When Siizanna had closed the door of her room she sat 
down in the dark. She was stunned. She must think it out. 

It was true, then. This thing which of late she had alwaj’^s 
put away from her as too ridiculous, too terrible to be possible, 
was there, before her very eyes — a fact to be faced, and fought. 
There was question of impure passion between the strange 
Frenchwoman and — Aimout. How, or in what degree she 
could not teU. But there it was. She had seen it, this even- 
ing. And it suddenly made cleai* many tilings to her which 
she had not understood before. Out of the confusion of the 
last two days it grew forth and took definite shape, and it 
illuminated what had lain in the dark. She was a simple 
woman, was Suzanna, a woman who thought simply and 
broadly, who divided the ideas with which she came in con- 
tact into good and bad, false and true, right and wrong. 
And, therefore, she did not always make nice little distinctions, 
which were plain enough to less single eyes, and the wise peo- 
ple of the world were apt to call her blind. ' 

It would be wrong, however, to accuse her of blindness in 
not sooner foreseeing the catastrophe wliich had now befallen 
her. Yet she thus accused herself, vehemently, in the first bit- 
terness of her self-reproach. She remembered her 'Original 
unwillingness to receive the stranger. Why had she not list- 
ened to her better intuition, and driven the woman from her 
door ? She forgot all the other circumstances of the case, as 
we are only too apt to do. She forgot that it had been practi- 
cally impossible to move Madame de Mongelas from the house, 
that it had always remained her intention to do so, as soon as' 
the doctor would give his permission, and that, in fact, only 
five days had elapsed since the invalid had been carried up- 
staii-s. She forgot, moreover, that her nephew’s declaration to 


SUZANNA’S ORDEAL. 


129 


Dorothy, before them all, had come to annul her foohsh feai’s, 
and to bring her the consummation of her fondest hopes, im- 
mediately after the fears had again brought the hopes into 
prominence. She forgot that her efforts to remove Madame 
de Mongelas, even when she had made them, had been over- 
ruled by circumstances or by that lady herself. In one word, 
in her anxiety to reproach herself and to lay at her own door 
the blame of aU that had happened, she forgot that it had been 
impossible for her to act otherwise than to afford brief hospi- 
tality to Madame de Mongelas. 

But since yesterday, said the accuser, were your eyes not 
opened? Or what degree of blindness woidd you have me 
beheve? She had certainly perceived since yesterday that 
somethiug was wi’ong. She had discovered that the stranger 
was acquiring too paramoimt an influence over Amout. But 
she had not ascribed this influence of the woman of tliii’ty-five 
over her boy-nephew to that passion which men call love. 
Was Amout not in love with Dorothy? Had he not talked 
of his love for her all yesterday ? Could a man be in love 
with two women at a time ? 

Suzanna knew httle of passions and evil lusts. The only 
“ love ” with which she was acquainted was that woman’s con- 
stancy which, once awakened, hves on for ever, beyond hope, 
beyond death — ay, beyond betrayal. 

She had seen that Amout admired what she would have 
called '' the world ” in Madame de Mongelas. She had seen 
more. She had watched liini growing worldly in his own 
heari, taking to himself the vices he admired in the French- 
woman. It was this influence wliich had filled her with alarm, 
and which she had sought to coimteract. 

And now had come the separation from Dorothy — enough, 
surely, to open her eyes. But once more she forgot, in her 
eager self-accusation, that she had only known of this separa- 
tion for the last couple of hours, that the separation itself had 
taken place that very morning. It seemed to her as if 
Madame de Mongelas had been part of her life from the be- 
ginning, as if all men but herself had known for yeai*s that 
the Frenchwoman was slowly but UTCsistibly di'awing Amout 
and his love apart. How evident, how inevitable the course 
9 


130 


AN OLD ]\IAID'S LOVE. 


of events appeared to her, now she beheld them from this point 
of final certitude ! This moi-ning only, she would have tri- 
umphantly laughed away the thought of Ai-nont’s liaison,” 
and now she told herself that she had wilfuUy provoked his 
ruin. 

“ The fault is mine. The fault is mine,” she said over and 
over again to herself. There was a fierce satisfaction, there 
was, at least, a momentary rest in the constant repetition of 
the words. The fii’st step towards action must be found in 

clear realization of the situation. The second Wliat 

could the second be ? The past was her fault ; so be it. The 
future ; — the future, then, must be her expiation. She shud- 
dered, her mind shuddered, as a wanderer suddenly arrested 
by a hghtning-flash on the brink of a precipice. She dared not 
look down into the misery before her. And by God’s mercy, 
in the darkness, she coidd not. A connection, be it what you 
wiU, between Amout and this popish woman ; a connection 
that must inevitably leave its stain upon his life, that would 
spread, perhaps, beyond the hmits of her anxious wardsliip ; 
a scandal — to do her justice, it must be recorded that she 
tiuned from the thought of scandal with impatience. Wliat 
mattered the outer disgi*ace, if the inner infamy were there ! 
But the imiu, the ruin of the boy’s whole existence, of his soul’s 
life now and for ever ! The sinking from honor, and virtue, 
and purity, as one slips down into the oozing morass, with a 
gasp here, and a clutch there, and an idle yearning after one 
stone of resting on which to ease, if but for a moment, the 
downward drag of weary feet ! O God ! O God ! She was 
not a woman to break out into lamentation or to throw up her 
hands in tragical despair. She sat silent, shrank together, 
staring, staring thi-ough the uncurtained window into the soft 
summer darkness. Only at times she pressed her clasped 
hands tighter to her bosom, and once or twice there shuddered 
into the stillness a stifled moan that was little more than a 
long-drawn breath. 

She did not believe in the fleeting nature of Araout’s wliim. 
Not she. For she knew, with a woman’s intuition, that Doro- 
thy loved linn, and she therefore believed it was he who had 
designedly and disgi*acefully thi’own her over for this new 


SUZANNA’S ORDEAL. 


131 


passion. She measured its intensity by that fact. And she 
had seen and recognized — as all women, even old maids, recog- 
nize it — the flicker in the Frenchwoman’s eyes. She had read, 
with the eagerness of desperation, her nephew’s reply. She 
told herself that Madame de Mongelas had gone forth to con- 
quer Amont. And therein she was right. And she told her- 
self further that Amont was the Frenchwoman’s victim and 
her devoted slave. • And therein, misled by her anxiety, she 
was wrong. 

She was wrong. Amont could not have told himself in how 
far, but he would certainly have been amazed and alarmed, 
could he have read the thoughts that were passing thi’ough 
his aimt’s mind at that moment. He was dazzled by the 
charms of the Frenchwoman : never before in his simple life 
had he come into contact with conscious beauty, the beauty of a 
woman desirous to please. He was desperate from disappoint- 
ment. Dorothy’s refusal, and, stiU more, what he called her 
cmelty, had shocked to its basis that behef in good women, 
which is the surest prop of a man’s morahty. His studies were 
irksome to him. The rehgion which formed their quintes- 
sence was paling into a di’eam. And the Frenchwoman had 
dawned and deepened upon his existence, not as an individual 
mistress, but as a type of the new life, the bright life of 
beauty and enjoyment, of warmth and color and softness — 
the life which had never crossed his path before, and which 
he now welcomed and rejoiced. It was a moment in wliich he 
stood at the cross-roads, that supreme moment of aU others, 
when a man has need of help from the pure women who love 
him. And he stood deserted; — and at bay. 

Oh for a moment’s simple trust between them ! The ago- 
nized woman down-staii-s sat enshrouding herself in one cruel 
thought : suffering is silent. We do not speak of wi’ongs that 
he beneath the surface of oiu* lives. And had she not spoken, 
once, twice ? Had she not in one supreme appeal placed all 
liis love and duty — ^his lifelong love and duty — on the hazai-d 
of a die — and lost ! Lost to an interloper, an acquaintance of 
yesterday, a courtesan — who could tell? Never again could 
there be between her and Amout the confidence of love. 
Never again. 


132 


AN OLD ]\LA.ID'S LOVE. 


Love ! Did she not know what love was ? By the furrows 
on her cheeks and the undiinmed flash in her eyes, by the 
softness of her worn old heart, ay, and by its sudden hardness, 
by the brief dream unforgotten thi'ough the long night 
watches ; ah ! by the boy np-staii’s — the one link between her 
and that sad sweetness of the past — by all her striving and 
yearning for him, by her hands gi-own hard with honest 
labor, — she knew. 

And other love than hers there was not. There was passion 
and lechery and wickedness inexpressible. There was the mad- 
ness of achievement and the madness of failm’e. There was 
hell, which is enjoyment ; and despair, which is sin. 

Once more she shuddered. This, then, was his futm-e — in- 
evitable, irresistible 5 it stood at the door and knocked. And 
he had set open the halls of his foohsh young heart and was 
bidding the guest to enter — a guest who makes merry, as the 
stranger in the ballad, and who then, when the feast is over, 
signals for his band of followers to break tlu’ough and devas- 
tate the house. The end was upon her. Already it held her 
by the throat. She must save liim. 

Then she started uj) — aimlessly ; she could do nothing but 
sink back again. Save him. She must save him. That was 
the second idea wliich clearly wrote itself upon her brain. The 
fii’st was : I am to blame. The second : And therefore I must 
save him. 

At whatsoever cost. How, when, she coidd not tell. She 
must arrest his fall before it was too late. She trusted — oli, 
with what passionate tmst ! — that it was not yet too late. It 
coidd not be. Only that morning he was still Dorothy’s 
plighted suitor. It could not be too late. 

Then now, now was the moment of supreme peril and su- 
preme salvation. Even now, while yet he hung ’twixt heaven 
and heU. Outside, in the starlight, she could see faintly glis- 
tening the fresh white spot where the broken branch still clung 
to its tree. Her eye rested upon it. She found herself wishing 
that he had fallen then, and died while yet she trusted him. 
She remembered how her heart had yearned over his danger 
and his success, and now — in the presence of a living death — 
she stood iiTesolute. 


SUZANNA'S ORDEAL. 


133 


She must act — act. What,could she do ? Nothing ! 

She struck out her hand in impotent eagerness. Into empty 
space. 

God must help her. For a flash of time her thoughts, upon 
the restless ocean, caught at that rock of repose. 

And then she laughed at herself, laughed, a short, shrill ht- 
tle laugh — to the silent night and the observant stars. 

God had no time to think of her and her affairs. It was 
true that He gave us om* senses, and we must use them for 
ourselves. Had she not, during all these years of solemn prep- 
aration, devoted her nephew’s honest young heart to Him? 
Had she not, with daily prayer for guidance, trusted in His 
wisdom and His aid ? And what had she done, on her part, 
to abate or to annul His influence ? She had laid this child of 
her faith and her fears at the feet of the eternal Benevolence, 
making sacrifice daily at that shrine of love of all the best that 
she possessed to bestow. 

She renounced the covenant of trustful surrender in the full 
passion of her helplessness. Not hers the guilt of hope con- 
fused and faith unanswered. Not hers the fault of shipwreck, 
if the anchor broke away. It was a relief to her thus to fly 
from all accusation of herself and of him, and to pom* out the 
bitterness of her sorrow against a Power that makes no reply. 
She could not, coidd not hate the son of her endeavor ; it were 
easier, in one desperate moment, to turn her hate against God. 

She loved the boy. The more, now that aU happiness, nay, 
that all rest, in earth and in heaven was falling from her, the 
more did she feel that love was filling and flooding and over- 
flowing her soul. She loved him, and before her love all other 
lights were paling. She loved him, none but him, nought but 
him. Her own life, her soul’s salvation, were as grains of 
dust upon the Ijalance. She must save him from the i-uin 
that he courted. She must save him, even as one might save 
a moth from burning by striking to the ground the priceless 
lamp that lured him to his fate. 

And she wished that it were in her power to kill Madame 
de Mongelas. To kill the woman who, with sweet smiles and 
sweeter kisses, lay right across his path of rectitude. 

It was not the fii’st time that the thought came upon her. 


134 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


It had possessed her, though with far lesser intensity, in that 
hour when he climbed up, at the woman’s command, into the 
jaws of death. To kill her ! To kill her ! It was absurd ; it 
was insane ; it was impossible. 

She thanked God it was impossible. Even in this moment 
of rejection she thanked Him for that. 

And yet she told herseK it was the one, the only means of 
deliverance. She did not beheve that Madame de Mongelas 
would quit the neighborhood on Monday. It were almost bet- 
ter she should stay in this house than with Mevrouw Barsse- 
lius. She sat on into the night. The little cottage was abso- 
lutely stOl. She wondered whether its other occupants were 
sleeping. If not, of what were their thoughts 1 There was 
only the meagre partition between her and the woman whose 
death she encompassed with her thoughts. The village clock 
struck half-past eleven, booming slowly through the breatliless 
night. 

She was able to do nothing. She must act and she could 
not. There was nought for her but to sit still and to await 
the catastrophe. 

She had fallen into a sort of torpor of expectation. She was 
roused by the sound of a voice, the veiy voice that was hissing 
at her heart. 

“Mademoiselle!” cried the voice softly. “Mademoiselle, 
are you yet awake ? ” 

She got up and crept to the door. And then she bent for- 
ward and hstened. 

“ Mademoiselle I ” 

She opened her door. “ Do you want anything ? ” she asked 
in toneless accents. 

“All, mademoiselle, for the love of the good God, listen a 
moment, if you are not sleeping.” 

Juffrouw Varelkamp left her door open and went into the 
adjoining room. A shaded hght was burning in a corner. It 
was her own little old lamp with the cracked cliina-shade — 
Abraham sacrificing Isaac. Her eye feU upon it. “ He should 
have sacrificed himself,” she thought. 

Madame de Mongelas was sitting up in bed, her long hair 
all loose about her shoulders, a bright flush on her cheek. 


SUZANNA’S ORDEAL. 


135 


“ Oh, how good of you to come ! ” she said gratefully. “ I 
cannot sleep. I am ill. I have overtired myself with the de- 
scent.” 

“ What is the matter ? ” said Suzanna curtly. 

“Ah, you are angry with me ! You must forgive me. I 
am self-wUled, and accustomed to having my own way. And 
your nephew ! He is very ‘ gentil.’ ” 

“ Is there anything you want done for you ? ” asked Suzanna, 
stdl more grimly. 

“Do not look at me in that way, mademoiselle. You 
frighten me. And I am nervous already. My foot hurts me 
very much. I should not have used it yet. And I cannot 
sleep.” 

Suzanna did not answer. 

“Would you give me a few drops from the little bottle 
there ? ” continued the Frenchwoman. “ It is for this that I 
ventured to call to you. The little bottle on the washstand 
— with the red label. There is a glass cup on the mantel- 
piece.” 

Suzanna moved mechanically to the washstand and took the 
httle bottle up in her hand. 

“ Bo very careful, I beg of you,” said madame. “ It is a 
very strong tincture of morjihia. WUl you pom- me out one 
drop in a couple of spoonfuls of water ? It is the only thing 
that makes me sleep.” 

Suzanna took the cup and poured a little water into it. 

“ WlU you take it to the light, my dear mademoiselle, and 
be very accm-ate ? One drop puts you to sleep, and ten ” 

“And ten ? ” said Suzanna. 

“ Mon Dieu, le grand peut-etre !” said Madame de Mongelas. , 

Suzanna barely understood her meaning. Perhaps she 
understood it incorrectly. She moved towards the corner 
where the lamp burnt dim. And as she moved, while still 
walking across the room, she uncorked the little bottle and 
held it over the glass. Her hand trembled — she stmnbled for- 
ward. 

“ Take it,” she said, standing by the invalid’s bed. 

“ Oh, thank you,” replied Madame de Mongelas — and emp- 
tied the tiny glass. 


AN OLD ISIAID’S LOVE. 



Suzanna put it down on the table at her side, and remained 
still for one moment, gazing down at the Frenchwoman. 

“ Mademoiselle,” began the invalid, after that moment of si- 
lence, “ once more, you must forgive me ; I mean no harm. 
Least of aU to your nephew. I like liim — and you. I am 

very grateful. I shall go on Monday — and then I — I 

Gracious Heaven ! what is this ? The moiphia was too strong. 

The dose Let me see the bottle.” She started up in bed. 

“ For the love of Heaven, let me see the bottle ! Quick ! ” 

“ Hush, hush ! ” said Mejuffrouw Varelkamp. 

“ Let me see the bottle ! ” screamed the Frenchwoman. She 
lifted herseK up. Miss Varelkamp neither moved nor spoke. 

The vieomtesse, her eyes dilated with teiTor, half dragged 
herself, half let herself fall from the bed, and with subdued 
shrieks at the pain the movement was causing her, she crept 
slowly along the floor toward the mantelpiece. Miss Varel- 
kamp neither spoke nor moved. 

Airived at her destination, Madame de Mongelas drew her- 
self up by the side of the fli-eplace, and, gasping from the 
elfort, hanging there, as best she could, in her white night- 
dress, she took the little moiphia bottle in her hand. 

Shriek after slu-iek filled the quiet house. Madame de Mon- 
gelas stood by the mantelpiece, holding the half -filled bottle 
aloft in her hand. 

“Arnout ! ” she cried. “Arnout ! Help ! Help ! She has 
killed me ! O my God ! Help ! ” 

An up-stairs door was thrown open, and, in a wliirlwdnd of 
anxiety, young Arnout rushed down and into the room. 

“ She has killed me,” repeated the Frenchwoman frantically, 
bursting into tears. “ She has poured out too much. Save 
me ! I am dying ! Quick ! ” She fell foi’ward on Arnout’s 
shoulder. He caught her in his arms, to keep her from the 
giound. 

The young man was about to soothe and to protest ; one 
glance at his aunt’s face checked him. He paused for an in- 
stant. Then he said shortty — assuming a tone of command 
such as she had never heard from any man before: “Go 
down-stairs immediately, and get us cotfee — the veiy strongest 
coffee you can boil. Make haste.” 


SUZANNA’S ORDEAL. 


137 


And she obeyed him. 

Left alone with Madame de Mongelas, he took her up and 
laid her gently on the bed. She was more dead than ahve 
with terror. Already the stupor was gaining upon her, and 
she allowed him to do as he liked. 

Then he went down to the kitchen, where his aunt was 
quietly busy with her petroleum-machine, working as a 
woman in a maze. Without speaking a word to her, he filled 
a jug full of warm water, and carried it up-stairs again. He 
added a certain quantity of cold, and then he offered Madame 
de Mongelas the nauseous beverage to drink. Half-way she 
desisted. 

“ More,” he said quietly, authoritatively. “ You must drink 
it all.” She looked at him, as a submissive cluld looks when 
it tak^ its medicine. 

Do you think I shall die ? ” she gasped, as he put down the 
empty cup. “Arnout, I must not die.” 

“ No, no,” he said soothingly. “ You are going to be iU per- 
haps, but soon you wiU be all right,” 

He helped her through the sickness which followed. His 
aunt came in presently with coffee, and woidd have approached 
the bed. He motioned her back. After a moment or two, 
when he could again leave the patient, he went to the ta])le, 
poured out the coffee, and brought it with his own hand to 
the bedside. Miss Varelkamp stood rigid by the waU. Ar- 
nout sat down without looking at her. 

Half an horn* later, when the patient was dozing among her 
jjOlows, the young man rose and faced his aunt. 

“ Is this true,” he said, “ this about the bottle ? ” 

She did not answer. 

He did not ask again. “ Murderess ! ” he said, and turned 
and left her. 

The invalid awoke, as he moved. “ Do not go ! ” she cried, 
starting up in fresh ten’or. “ Do not leave me, Aniout ! Take 
me away ! She wiU kill me, if you leave me ! Take me away ! 
I am better. I must go to-night ! Anywhere ! Anywhere ! 
Away ! ” 

He stood looking at her. Then he cast one other glance 
upon his aimt. She met it ctilmly, but with a stony, meaning- 


138 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


less stare. He tiirned again toward the patient. “ I will take 
you,” he said. 

He brought her such wraps as were easiest foimd by liim 
in the confused search among her dresses, and he helped her, 
as well as he could, to put them on. In the loveliness of her 
nSgligS, in the distress wliich his presence caused her, as he 
brought forward a flannel dressing-gown and di^ew a soft 
stocking over her swollen foot ; among the htter of handsome 
toilettes heaped up upon the floor, under the glaring light of 
an uncovered candle ; in aU the hurry, and the awkwardness 
and the dismay — ^he remained, cold, stern — as an officer of jus- 
tice. At last she was ready, dressed sufficiently at least for a 
brief transit on that lovely summer night. 

“ Let us go,” he said, still without lookmg at his aunt. And 
still she stood leaning against the wall, with that unmeaning 
stare. 

He took the beautiful burden in his arms, lifting her to his 
breast, as on that memorable evennig when first he found her 
sitting by the road. And slowly, carefully, he bore her down 
the stairs, and out of the house, and along the silent road. 

The cottage door banged behind him. Suzanna heard it. 

And then the little gate slammed to, with an impatient snap. 
Suzanna heard that also. 

The night was such an one as summer sometimes brings us, 
a medley of strange contrasts, waiun and yet cool, dark and 
yet hght, silent and yet full of a thousand varied echoes. The 
birds were not asleep 5 the lovehness of hving on such a night 
as this was keeping them awake, and every now and then, 
sometimes here, sometimes there, a httle cry went up among 
the bushes, a tremble of music, suddenly hushed, a caU of love, 
confident of answer. And bright insects floated to and fro 
through the soft darkness, a quiver of light in constantly chang- 
ing flashes, drunk with the ecstasy of motion, borne forward 
by their own delirium. In the topmost heights of the tall 
trees that bordered the road the leaves spread in delicate tra- 
cery over the sky, undisturbed by even a passing zephyr, yet 
a-tremble from time to time with their own happiness of hfe. 
And the jasmine-bushes— ah, the tell-tale jasmine !— tossed 


AFTERWARDS. 


139 


their overflowing fragrance on the road at Amouf s feet. He 
walked onwards, bravely, silently, with his face set hard, be- 
neath the twinkling stars, and the sweetness of the jasmine 
enfolding him and her. 

Once he stumbled. She gave a little cry of alarm. She 
had lain very stUl till then. 

“ Hush ! ” he said, “hush ! We shall soon be there.” And 
he passed onward, down the road towards the village. Sud- 
denly they came upon two figures seated by the roadside, half 
asleep perchance. 

The two, thus unexpectedly disturbed, shrank back at first, 
yet curiosity tempted them to look forth again to catch a 
glimpse of so strange a sight. 

And Amout, in passing, recognized, or thought he recog- 
nized them. The one was Karel Donselaar ; the other, doubt- 
less, was neighbor’s Comehe. 

He blushed to himself in the darkness. He set his face yet 
more sternly, and strode on. 

“ I do not care where you are taking me, Amout,” she said ‘ 
presently, “ as long as you take me away from her. I know 
you will look after me.” 

“We are going to the village inn,” he answered. “ It is 
very humble, but it will do.” 

“ I am not too hea^7■ for you, mon pauvre gargon ? ” 

“ No,” he said with a gasp. “ Not yet.” 


CHAPTER XXHI. 

AFTERWARDS. 

“ It is tme,” said Karel van Donselaar. “ Every Avord of 
it’s tme. And I’m glad it is.” 

“And I’m sorry,” said Koos. 

They were walking up and down the dining-room at Steene- 
vest, in opposite dii-ections, each with his hands in his pockets. 
The cloth was laid for dinner. The clock pointed to tliree 
minutes to five. 


140 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


“Always supposing that it is trae,” added Koos, after a pause. 

“ I always thought some similar little comphcation lay be- 
hind his fine ideas of honor,” continued Karel. “ If I betted, 
I would have laid you a wager that this kind of thing would 
have come out some day.” 

Koos did not answer. 

“ Only in a quieter way,” Karel went on. “ Whew ! Cer- 
tainly in a quieter way.” 

Koos stopped in his walk to take a strawberry from one 
of the fruit-dishes on the table. 

“ I wish you wouldn’t touch the dessert, Koos,” said Karel 
testily. “ You know it’s one of the tilings the governor hates.” 

“ Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the grapes,” 
said Koos. “All the same, I don’t think the governor would 
be overjoyed to hear that the bigger foxes run after chickens 
— ell ! ” He looked so significantly at his elder brother, as he 
spoke, that the latter could not but catch, in part at least, the 
meaning of his words. 

“ I don’t understand what you mean,” he said, turning away. 

“Of course not,” rephed Koos. “Never mind. I always 
tell papa you are at home, when necessary. Here the old gen- 
tleman comes.” 

The clock began striking as Mynheer van Honselaar entered 
the room. He waited tdl the last stroke, and then he said 
solemnly, “ Dorothea is late.” 

“She’s been to afternoon church, papa,” Koos answered 
hastily. 

His father looked at him with quiet scorn. “ That is over by 
four o’clock,” he said. 

“Yes,” Koos went on eagerly; “but then, she is sure to 
have gone and looked up some old women after it.” 

“I wish she wouldn’t,” said Karel. “She brings home 
fevers and tilings for us to catch.” 

“ You won’t catch your fevers from Dorothy,” cried Koos 
indignantly ; “ there are other opportunities for that ! ” His 
air was so menacing, that Karel shrank back. He scowled 
fiercely at his brother. He was beginning to discover aU the 
unpleasantness of a secret which the other seemed partly to 
share ^ 


AFTERWARDS. 


141 


“ Don’t fly out so at Karel, Koos,” remarked the father re- 
provingly. “ It is very wi-ong of Dorothy to miss the dinner- 
bell. Visits to poor people are veiy well, and the proper 
thing in the coimtiy, but obedience to parents is better than 
charity.” 

At this junctm-e Dorothy herself came in. Her father for- 
bore to scold her more than he felt that his duty requu-ed of 
him. He was very gentle to her these days, on account of 
her submission to his will. 

“ Dorothea,” he merely said, “ it is seven minutes past five. 
Punctuality is the basis of morality, and morahty is the soul 
of religion.” 

Dorothy might honor and obey her father as much as if 
she really loved him. She succeeded pretty well in this. 
But accurate she could not be. It was not in her character. 
Fate had punished this punctilious father by giving Imn a 
daughter who possessed all the viidues except exactitude. 
And therefore, not seeing the one he was constantly in search 
of, he forgot to notice those that were tliere. If you said to 
Mynheer van Donselaar, “ Your daughter is always so anxious 
to please you,” he would answer, not uutnithfuUy, “ Yes, but 
she always pleases me five minutes too late.” And the worst 
of it was that you could not please Mynlieer van Donselaar 
five minutes too late. 

‘‘I have been to see old Baas Vroom,” she said apologetic- 
ally. She lived apologetically towards her father. It is a 
bad form of intercourse. Continued protest is almost better 
than ceaseless apology. “He is veiy ill, and more incor- 
rigible than ever. He has Bible texts for all his vices. You 
remember that he told the Domine he would not give up his 
pipe. Well, now he says he won’t leave off drinking, for the 
Bible says he may ‘ try the spiiits,’ and he hasn’t yet made up 
his mind.” 

Koos burst into a roar of laughter. Karel gave a scornful 
s niff . Mynheer van Donselaar moved not a muscle. 

“These jokes are very unseemly,” he said, “especially on 
a Simday. You should not countenance them, Dorothea.” 

“ But, papa,” i)rotested Dorothy, with a look half piteous, 
half comical at Koos, “ he really means it. And it is veiy 


142 


AN OLD aiAID’S LOVE. 


teiTible. I assure you he goes on drinking in earnest, and he 
is quite convinced of the validity of his defence. I wanted to 
ask Miss Varelkamp about it, but Miss Varelkamp was not in 
chiu’ch. I am afraid she must be ill, only it seems so funny 
to think of Miss Varelkamp being 01. Do you know, papa, 
I beheve it is the very first time during all these years that I 
have seen Miss Varelkamp’s seat empty in church.” 

“ She is an exemplaiy woman,” said the father diplomatic- 
ally, “ in her way and according to her station in life.” 

“And hus an exemplary nephew,” added Karel. “ I think 
I can account for Miss Varelkamp’s unusual absence from 
chiu’ch.” 

Koos kicked Karel’s long legs under the table. The elder 
brother looked across in surprise. He had neither Koos’s 
deeper insight, nor the wish to possess it. There was no 
reason, that he could discover, why he should keep back the 
news he was bimiing to teU. 

“ MyiOieer Aimout OostiTun,” he went on, laugliing, “ has 
prepared a pleasant httle sm-prise for his affectionate relative. 
He left the cottage last night, near midnight, with the myste- 
rious French viscountess, and introduced that lady to the 
luxuries of the village inn.” 

“ What do you mean, Karel ? ” asked Mynheer van Donse- 
laar blandly. “ I wish you would call things by their names. 
I am too old to understand the new way of speaking.” Dorothy’s 
fresh color had forsaken her cheeks at the first mention of 
Arnout Oostnim. 

“ Some things can’t afford to be called by their names, papa. 
But what I am telling you is literal enough. And the couple, 
I hear, left by the Geiman express, destination unknown. 
Cologne, I suppose. If so, they are now probably enjoying 
their tete-d-tete dinner at the Hotel du Nord.” 

“Very funny,” said Koos, to say something. He was 
anxiously watching Dorothy. Her face bespoke more amaze- 
ment than alarm. 

“Very,” acquiesced Karel; “but I can understand Miss 
Varelkamp scarcely caring to teU it out in church.” 

“ How much of this story is tme,” interposed Mynheer van 
Donselaar, “ and how much of it is false ? ” 


AFTERWARDS. 


143 


It is all of it false, of coiu’se, papa,” said Dorothy eagerly ; 

and I think,” she went on, di-opping into French, “ that Karel 
might exercise his wit when the servant is out of the room. 
Aniout OostiTim is a student of theology, and it is enough to 
ruin his whole futime if such stories get about.” She stopped 
in dismay, fearing she had already said too much. 

“Amout Oostrnm’s theological studies,” said Karel, coolly 
contiuumg to employ his mother-tongue, “ will henceforth be 
confined to the beauties of the Catholic rehgion, as revealed 
in its saints, or perhaps to that stiU older cult of the heathen 
goddess ” 

“ Hold yom* tongue,” said Koos roughly. 

Mynheer van Donselaar knew nothing of heathen god- 
desses, except that they never wore any clothes. 

“ Yes, yes,” he said ; “ if the thing were true, it would be 
far too serious for joking.” At the bottom of his perfectly 
proper heart he almost hoped it might be. It would simplify 
matters so with Dorothy. Not but that she had proved a 
dutiful daughter, as a child of his natm-aUy would be, when 
he had spoken seriously to her yesterday moniing. StiU, 
though the sense of moral obligation was very weU in its way, 
yet it was not a fimd that you could di-aw as safe a check on 
as the inexorable decrees of fate. Mjmheer van Donselaar pre- 
fen-ed safe checks, especiaUy when dealing with so unreliable 
a quantity as woman. Women, according to his idea, should 
never have been aUowed to have any opinion of their own, 
except the one, that it is pleasant to obey. You see how old- 
fashioned he was. 

“ But very likely it is not true,” said Koos, good-naturedly. 
“After all, how does Kai’el know ? ” 

“Karel knows,” said that young gentleman, “because he 
has been to the village, and because aU the village knows, and 
because old Tipsy himself told him that tlie pair of sweetheaids 
knocked at the inn-door in the sUent horn* of night. That’s 
how Karel knows.” 

“And, for aU that, the story is not tme,” persisted Dorothy ; 
“ for the simple reason that Madame de Mongelas is imable to 
leave her room.” 

“ Madame de Mongelas can leave her room quick enough if 


144 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


she finds some one to caiiy her from it,” replied Karel coolly ; 
“ and that’s why the young divine took her up in his arms. 
He carried her to the village, and he carried her to the car- 
riage, and he carried her into the train — and I dare say he 
carried her up to the cabinet, in which he is at this moment 
drinking champagne with her — unless they have a lift at the 
Hotel du Nord.” 

“ They have not,” said Mynheer van Donselaar with comic 
precision ; “ at least, they had not last year, on the 19th of 
August, when I came back from Ems. It is a grave defi- 
ciency in an otherwise excellently managed establishment.” 

He hes, Koos,” said Dorothy, and he knows that he lies.” 

Karel shrugged his shoulders. “As if I cared ! ” he said. 
“You are unreasonable. I care as little for Ainout Oostinm 
as you do — or ought to. And it’s no business of mine, if he 
goes to the devil — or runs away with an angel — eh ! ” 

“ Liar ! ” she repeated — aU her smoiddering anger and anx- 
iety aroused by his sneer — “ liar ! it is a vulgar bit of scandal ; 
but you would be glad if it were true.” 

“ Yes, begad, I believe you would,” said Koos. 

“ Dorothea ! ” said mynheer wamingly. 

She bent her head over her plate, so as to hide her con- 
fusion. 

“ The strawberries are not so good tliis year,” said Mynlieer 
van Donselaar. “ They have had too much rain.” 

“Papa,” began Dorothea, when the two young men had 
risen from the table with their customary httle yawn of relief, 
“ I should like to speak to you for a moment. I have some- 
thing to ask. 

“Cei-tainly, my daughter,” mynheer answered pompously. 
“ It is Sunday, and my time is entirely at your service.” 

It was one of Mynheer van DonselaaPs favorite fictions 
that Sunday was his day of rest. The less he labored on other 
days, the more energetically he rested on Sunday. 

“I want,” said Dorothy quietly, “to go this evening and 
see Mejulfrouw Varelkamp.” 

Her father shook Ins head disapprovingly. 

“ I knew he would,” thought Dorothy. 


AFTERWARDS. 


145 


“ If there is any truth in this disg^'aeeful story,” he said, 
‘‘ you are the last person who sliould take any iiction in the 
matter. And if there is no truth in it — as I sincerely hope 
there may not be — then, Dorothy, there is still more reason 
why you should avoid the house of Mejulfrouw Varelkamp.” ' 

“Reason or mo reason, papa,” said Dorothy, “you must 
allow me, if you please, to go and see her.” 

“ That is a woman’s argiunent,” said mynheer. “ No.” 

“And that, papa, is a man’s reply,” rejoined Dorothy. 

“ Dorothea, you are pert, and pertness is of all things most 
unbecoming. The matter is settled; and now, if you will 
{illow me, I think I should like to go into the garden for a 
little before tea.” 

He had a habit of saying “ if you wiU allow me,” when he 
wanted more especially to have his own way. It was so easy 
to him to say so, where no one ever left his wishes unallowed. 

“ Papa,” said Dorothy, rising also, “ let us understand each 
other once for aU. I am going to obey you, as I told you yes- 
terday, but obedience has its limits. That is to say,” she con- 
tinued hastily, fearing he might misunderstand lier meaning, 
“ I will obey you, but I must do so in my own manner. I 
supj)ose it is my duty to make other people as miserable as 
myself because my father wishes it ; l)ut you must allow me 
to spoil their hves and my own in the way which I prefer. 
And therefore, I shall do as you wish, but I must go and find 
out about Miss Varelkamp.” 

“ Do as I wish while you defy me ! ” cried Mynheer van 
Donselaar. “Strange logic of the sex. Besides, Dorothea, 
you can’t be back in time for tea.” 

“ If Arnout Oostrum is in the house, I promise you not to 
enter it. If he is not in the house, then I must know what 
has befallen him.” 

“ Dorothea, Dorothea, obedience is not made in selections. 
You are not obedient. You are disobedient. And you will 
bring my grey hairs in soitow to the grave.” 

Uttering wliich melancholy prophecy. Mynheer van Donse- 
laar contentedly stroked his shining forehead, as a prelim- 
inary for properly adjusting liis grey wide-awake. There was 
nothing he dreaded so much — next to missing a train — as 
IQ 


146 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


wearing his hat awry. And then he went ont to look at his 
geraniums. He was not really disturbed at Dorothy’s con- 
tumacy. He knew that he could trast her on the essential 
point. And he was wise enough to give way in all lesser 
ones. In fact, as Cook Mina had early discovered, and poor 
Madame van Donselaar never, the only manner to conquer 
tills gentleman was to face him and bid him do his worst. 

Dorothy put on her hat and jacket and hurried down the 
road. She knew not what to believe. She could not trust 
her thoughts to dwell upon Karel’s story. As he had told it, 
she declared it to be impossible ; yet something, she felt, must 
have happened, to explain both the rumor of his disgi’ace, and 
Miss Varelkamp’s unprecedented absence from chui’ch. And 
she could not help repeatedly recalling his tenable words to 
her on their parting m the grocer’s shop. What responsibihty 
might not be attributable to her, if any misfortune had really 
befallen her rejected lover? She flew down the road, her 
heart palpitating between prayers and reproaches. With 
every moment’s delay she grew more persuaded that some- 
thing was wrong. 

She reached the little cottage, and paused. The windows 
were closed ; the blinds were down. The whole house looked 
stOl and dead. Dorothy went up to the front-door and rang 
the bell. It resounded through the silence with a clang that 
seemed almost irreverent. She stood under the falling 
shadows and waited. 

Presently Betje appeared, and opened the door with unnec- 
essary caution. Her face was harder and redder and more 
wooden than ever. 

“Is the Juffrouw at home, Betje?” asked Dorothy. “Is 
she alone ? ” 

Yes, the Juffrouw was alone, the servant said. She would 
go and see whether the Juffrouw could receive Juffrouw Don- 
selaar. 

Dorothy slipped into the tiny haU after her. She followed 
her to the door.’ She heard Betje’s question and a muffled 
“No,” in reply, and then she shpped past the maidservant, 
and shut the door behind her. 

The well-known sitting-room, with its faded carpet and cur- 


AFTERWARDS. 


147 ' 


tains, was dark and, on account of the blinds having been 
down all day, comparatively very cool. Dorothea could not 
suppress a shiver. It was like coming into an open grave. 

In a corner, huddled up in her arm-chair, sat Mejuffrouw 
Varelkamp. She rose slowly when she saw the young gnl 
coming towards her. 

For a moment the two women faced each other, anxiety in 
the eyes of the one, desperation in those of the other. Then 
their common sorrow overcame them, and they feU upon each 
other’s necks and wept. 

It did not last long, however, before Miss Varelkamp put 
Dorothy away from her. “No, no,” she said, “I am not 
worthy. He is gone. And— God forgive me — it was my 
fault.” 

“ Surely, dear Juffrouw,” said Dorothy gently, “ there is no 
fault of yom*s in aught that has befallen him. Eiror there 
may be, but not guilt in your excess of love.” In her bewilder- 
ment she sank into a chair and sat sUent. Mejuffrouw Varel- 
kamp shook her head. 

“ I never loved him,” she said ; “ I enjoyed him. That is a 
veiy different thing. And God has taken the enjoyment from 
me that I might learn the love.” 

“ God ! ” she continued. “ What right have I to speak of 
Him? Last night I rejected Him, and He abandoned me. 
There is no God, Dorothea, and if there be. He does not 
know.” 

Dorothy still sat sUent. She checked the futile protest that 
had risen to her hps, but there came such a look of tender 
sjTnpathy into her eyes that, even in the semi-darkness. Miss 
Varelkamp turned away her head. 

“ No, no,” she said, with a movement of the hand, as if she 
were repelling something. “ Not that. If you knew, Juffrouw 
van Donselaar, to whom you were speaking, you would shake 
the dust from your garments and leave me to my ” — she was 
going to say “ misery ” ; but no, she would not court sympathy 
— “ to my thoughts.” 

“ I love him,” said Dorothy simply, “ and therefore I have a 
right to be here.” 

“ I know it,” cried Suzanna with suppressed passion. “ You 


148 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


love him, and he has deserted you and ruined your life. And 
therein also, being guilty, I have wi’onged you through liim. 

I do not ask your forgiveness. That were an idle mockery. 
Lifelong wrongs are not wiped out with an ‘ Oh, pray don’t 
mention it,’ as the parsons tell us. Expiation is forgiveness ; 
but it is too early to talk of that, and, besides, I can never 
expiate to you.” 

“If we are to bandy words about guilt and forgiveness,” 
began Dorothy resolutely, “ then mine were the gi^eater share 
of blame. For he did not desert me, as you appear to fancy, 
Juffrouw Varelkamp ; but I rejected him, if it be rejection to 
teU him that I could not marry against my father’s vdll. But 
I thought he miderstood my love.” 

“Girl!” cried Miss Varelkamp, starting passionately for- 
ward and clutching Dorothy’s wiist, “ am I to understand you 
refused him ? ” 

“ My father forbade me to hsten to his suit,” said Dorothy, 
unflinehiugly bearing both the pain she accepted as her own 
and the'pam she was compelled to inflict ; “ and what could I 
do but teU him so, dear Juffrouw ? Alas for us poor women 
who cannot say openly what we think 1 You would not have 
had me confess to him that I loved liim in the very moment 
when I told him I could never become his wife 1 You would 
not, would you, Juffrouw?” 

She spoke the last words anxiously. She was eager for the 
older woman’s approval. Never having had a mother to 
guide her, she was obhged to decide these httle aU-important 
questions of feminine reserve according to the code of her 
own pure conscience. 

Mejuffrouw Varelkamp’s soul was yearning to be very wroth 
with Dorothy. It was Dorothy, then, who had cast the boy 
adiift, thereby precipitating hiih into the arms of the evil 
Frenchwoman. And it would have been a relief to empty 
some of aU this pent-up bitterness on Dorothy’s head, and to 
lighten by so doing the weight of her own reproach. She did 
not hnswer for some moments, fighting out the struggle ; and 
then she said coldly, “ No, you could not do that. You are 
right.” * 

“ I am so glad you think so,” answered Dorothy gratefully j 


AFTERWARDS. 


149 


“ but then, surely, Jufifrouw, you are not more to blame than 
I am. Let us not increase, our burden by futile self-reproach.” 

“ I ! ” cried Suzanna, her inward tonnent breaking forth, 
“ I ! I am a murderess ! Ah, look incredulous, if you will. 
Laugh, if so it pleases you ! It is absurd, Dorothy, is it not ? 
It is incredible ! An old woman like me, such a quiet, respect- 
able, pious old woman! A murderess — ^hey? — Mke the pic- 
tures in the shop-windows. Wliy don’t you laugh ? You see 
I do I It is very comical to think of if it were not so real. 
Hey ? ” 

Dorothy thought for a moment that her companion had 
lost her senses. Yet her manner, excited as it was, was not 
that of a madwoman. 

“Listen, Dorothy,” said Miss Varelkamp more quietly. “I 
am not at aU deranged in my mind, if you happen to be afraid 
of that. You will think I exaggerate, if I say I have not that 
good fortune. I most earnestly hope you may never ex- 
perience how true the words can be. Do not let us be melo- 
dramatic, Dorothy.” Dorothy involuntarily shuddered at the 
quiet horror of the words. “People sometimes say things 
very calmly which they know to be true, and while they say 
them they would give all they possessed to know that they 
were mad and were talking madness, as mad people often do 
know. Do you understand me? Very well. I am a mur- 
deress.” 

She sat very stdl upon her sofa. Only her fingers twitched 
as if with ghostly knitting. And her brow was wet. 

“But, Miss Varelkamp,” cried Dorothy, terrified by the 
other’s soberness, “ Madame de Mongelas is not dead ? ” 

A gleam of fierce satisfaction broke over Miss Varelkamp’s 
pale eyes. “Aha, you understand me,” she cried. “Yes, 
Madame de Mongelas — I would have done it if I could. Oh, 
you need not think that I reproach myself with whining ^ I 
am sorry’s.’ I am sorry — ^yes, that she stOl lives. I am 
sorry that I did not do it better. You see, I am not afraid of 
the police or of the disgrace to my good name. You can go 
and teU it to the burgomaster, if you choose. It is true 
enough, Dorothy, that I wanted to kill Madame de Mongelas. 
I don’t suppose you would exactly call it miu-der. But I 


150 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


wanted to kill her. And I wanted — ^in that one hurried, 
frenzied moment — I wanted the morphia to be too strong, and 
I wanted to pour it out rashly. I did not know what the 
results would be ; I only hoped they would prove hurtful to 
her. And that is what I call murder. And I am sorry — do 
you understand ? — I am sorry it faded. I would rejoice to see 
her, at this moment, lying dead at my feet.” 

To Dorothy this horrible recital conveyed as yet no very 
definite meaning. She saw, however, that J uffi’ouw V arelkamp 
was reheved by it, and she encouraged her to talk on. Neither 
of them had spoken one word of Arnout’s disgrace. It was 
tacitly understood between them. And both shrank from the 
vulgar recital of details. 

“No,” said Juffrouw Vai’elkamp, vehemently, “I do not 
accuse myself for having striven to rescue him. I accuse my- 
self for having made it possible for him to f aU. And I accuse 
myseK most of aU, because it is 1 — I ” — her voice rose almost 
to a shriek — “ that have driven him from the house. Do you 
understand what that means ? Woman, have you ever loved ” 
— she timned angrily on Dorothy — “ and do you understand 
what that means ? Since last night I can only remember one 
thing clearly. It was I that drove him from the house. Per- 
haps if I had waited, if I had reasoned with him again, I 
might have touched his heart. After his first rebuff, I was 
too proud to do it. You see, I know all about myself. I have 
thought it out so often in aU these hours. It is long ago since 
lie went away. And if I once hfted up my hand against her, 
she ought never to have lived to teU him of it. I have driven 
him to his imin, and for the last fifteen years he has been all I 
had and all I loved on earth.” 

“ You must not talk like that,” said Dorothy ; “ oh no, you 
must not talk like that. Dear Juffrouw, whatever has hap- 
pened, it is a good thing, a blessed thing, that we have not the 
death of a feUow-creature to deplore.” 

Miss Varelkamp eyed her curiously. “You say that ! ” she 
said. “ You ! The one tiling you have yet worth hoping for 
is her death — ^if you love him, as you say.” 

Dorothy blushed painfully. “ Let us never again speak of 
my feelings for him,” she said. “ Wliat I said, I said under 


THE DOJVHN^'S ADVICE, 151 

the stress of the moment. Forget it ; it has no right to be 
remembered.” ' 

Suzanna pressed her hand to her forehead. “ I forget all 
things,” she said, “ except my hate of her.” 

“And your love for him,” suggested Dorothy softly. 

“ The two are one,” replied Suzanna 5 “ but as yet I can see 
them only from the side of the hate.” 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE DOMINO’S ADVICE. 

Dominus Jakob te Baked sat in his easy-chair, wrapped 
in an old green dressing-gown. Next to him stood a tray with 
a white china cup, and a little black tea-pot on a transparent 
oil-lamp. Between his lips rested a long Gouda pipe, from 
which he drew slow and thoughtful whiffs, and on his feet 
were Miss Varelkamp’s brightly colored slippers. They were 
the only things in the little study that looked fresh and new. 
She had given them to him last Chi’istmas. And the gi-ey 
woolen socks that peeped out of them were also of her mak- 
ing. She knitted, first for Arnout, secondly for Jakob te 
Bakel, and thirdly — ad libitum — ^for the naked blacks. 

The minister had an old divine laid open by his elbow, a 
musty book, that ought to have been consigned two eentimies 
ago to that eternal perdition of which it was so eloquent. He 
was not reading it, and if he had been reading it, he would 
not have taken in its contents. Jakob te Bakel was a good 
man, but he was also a young man, and, like aU young men 
who are very good, he alternately told himseff unintentionally 
that he was a little better, and that he was much worse, than 
his fellow-creatures. And he was in that early stage of every 
earnest clergyman’s experience when dogma is either every- 
thing or nothing to him. It was nothing to our good Jakob, 
who would have told you that “Christian life is Christian 
dogmji.” This was a favorite sentence of his — in fact, what 
the Germans call his “ Leibspmch ” — and his father, the parson 


152 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


of a neighboring parish, and a strictly orthodox preacher, 
described it as “ the pavement of the road to hell.” 

The father never saw hjs son nowadays, as the best method 
of convincing him that he was in error j not that there was 
any overt quarrel between them, only that little divergence of, 
dii'ection from the narrow path to the broad one. Old Domine 
te Bakel said that he could not help it, it he no longer met 
with his son on the road ; it was not he that had swerved to 
the right or left. In fact, this very subject had been the 
source of the one solitary attempt at humor of which the old 
Domine had ever been guilty in the presence of his child. 
“ But, father,” had said young Jakob, fresh from the univer- 
sity, my views, perhaps, are broader.” “ My son,” the canny 
old cleric had answered grimly, “ I do not doubt it, for you 
get them on the broader road.” Young Jakob had not given 
up aU hope of convincing his father. It is a fine thing to be 
yomig. 

But in the meantime he was lonely in his modest parsonage, 
with a tiresome old servant, who did not approve of his ser- 
mons — as what old Dutch servant would? They all prefer 
their dogma baked hard — and a cat that considered the house- 
hold existed for her individual comfort. “ You must many, 
Jakob,” Miss Varelkamp would often teU liim. And it is 
impossible to give a more indefeasible proof that this young 
man reverenced nothing than by telling that on one occasion 
he had boldly made answer, ‘‘ Not unless you will have me. 
Miss Varelkamp.” 

This evening, as he rested after the labors of his Sunday, 
he was thinking of the old lady, whose slippers shone brightly 
on his feet. He had missed her, to his amazement, from liei* 
seat at the morning service, and his clerk had lost no time in 
giving him a hurried explanation of her absence, as he changed 
his gown in the vestry, when all was over. AU through the 
day the terrible story had tormented him — ^the worshippers in 
the afternoon had found his discourse “ was wanting in depth,” 
and now he was glad that, liis work being done, he was able 
to bestow a moment’s calm reflection on the news he had 
heard. The moment sweUed into an hour without his notic- 
ing it. He di’ank eleven cups of tea over the incident, with- 


THE DOlVnNlfi’S ADVICE. , 


153 


out noticing that the water was off the boil, and he smoked 
thi-ee pipes. And then he said to himself, “ It is truly dread- 
ful,” and lighted a fom-th. 

After the first son’owful surprise, the question which 
requh’ed most immediate answer in his own mind asserted 
itself. What must he do in the matter ? His favorite decision 
under such circumstances was “nothing”; and when he had 
clearly proved to himself that this was the most reasonable 
and most desmable course of action, he would go out and do 
what his hand found to do. Heart and brain were always 
quaiTeUing on rehgious topics in Jakob te Bakel. The brain 
invariably reckoned out that the heart was wrong, and the 
heart as invariably did what was right. The people of the 
village complained bitterly of a clergyman who said they were 
best left to themselves ; they complained as bitterly because he 
was assiduous in his attempts to improve them, and especially 
to make them give up their habits of intoxication. This last 
was a particular offence among these rigid disciples of Goma- 
, rus. “ Surely the Lord can save a drunkard, if He chooses,” 
said one man, an elder. “Jakob,” remarked his father, “is 
trying to make his people righteous in their own conceits ; 
he’U find it won’t answer. It’s not the pledge that they want, 
but the covenant.” And the people themselves held a meet- 
ing, in which they decided to remind their minister that the 
Bible had declared that “the kingdom of God was not a 
matter of meat and di*ink.” And they wrote him a letter to 
that effect. 

So Jakob had got into a habit of sa5dng that people must 
work out their own salvation, and that the minister must 
not impede them more than was absolutely imavoidable. He 
said it in the bitter disillusion which followed on student 
ideals; and some of the old ladies of the village, having 
heard the words repeated, decided that the minister was an 
atheist. 

What could he, then, do in the face of mighty wickedness 
or unfathonied trouble ? A year or two ago, on the threshold 
of his ministiy, he would have said : “Attack them and con- 
quer.” Now he muttered: “Stand aloof and pray.” The 
time would come, perhaps, when he would learn to combine 


154 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


the two. But, in the meantime, he was often greatly at a loss 
how to act. 

He had got into a habit of consulting Miss Varelkamp. 
That lady, whose religious opinions were altogether different 
from his, divided her time between attempting to convert, him 
to her creed and advising him how to get on as well as he 
could imtil he accepted it. Miss Varelkamp’s religious con- 
victions were an extract of the Heidelberg Catechism with a 
good deal of extra pepper thrown in — a theoretic, religion, there- 
fore, which was chiefly preserved for discussion, and which 
regularly came out, like the best Japanese tea-things, when- 
ever she had some of her old cronies to tea. The morality of 
her daily life was that of her strong common sense, and prac- 
tically much more religious than her religion. She never 
practised monstrosities ; she only preached them. 

But now there had come a great crisis, a storm that swept 
all little conventional vu’tues away. How woidd she meet it ? 
The very person to whom the Domine was accustomed to go 
for aid, was now perhaps waiting for the service she had so 
often conferred upon others. 

Of course he must go and see her in her trouble. Nothing 
is easier to the thick-skinned and nothing more difficult to the 
sensitive. Jakob te Bakel was most painfuUy sensitive, as 
lame people are apt to be, and he knew by experience that, 
because he wore a white tie, people expected, and therefore 
did not care for, his expressions of condolence. He sighed as 
he looked down at his slippers. Miss Varelkamp was the very 
last person to be influenced by anything he might say. 

“ Shall I go, or shall I wait tiU she sends for me ? ” he asked 
for the twentieth time. Then, at last, he stretched out his 
hand for his well-thumbed little Bible, which lay close by on 
the table. In this period of his uncertainty on many subjects, 
he had got into a foolish old-fashioned habit of deciding all 
difficult matters by the oracle of the Book. He would push 
in a paper-knife between the closed pages of the sacred vol- 
ume, and then take as his guide the passage he found indi- 
cated. He did so now, and the result was that his eye was 
arrested by the words: “And my people shall dwell in a 
peaceable habitation, and in sure dweUings, and in quiet 


THE DOMINO’S ADVICE. 


155 


resting-places.” “Aha,” he said, with a smile of rehef, “ that 
means, of course, that I am not to go.” And he settled him- 
self again in his easy-chair. 

But after a few moments his conscience put itself obstrep- 
erously foi-ward and reminded him that very often he tried 
twice before deciding. He did not agree with his conscience 
that it was better to try twice; nevertheless he presently 
pushed the paper-knife once more between the pages and bent 
forward to see what message it would bring to him. And 
this time he read : “ Comfort ye, comfoi’t ye my people, saith 
yom’ God.” He blushed over his ears to himself, in the 
silence of his little sanctum. The words, in their directness, 
seemed almost a message from on high. He got up quietly, 
and looked for his boots and his hat. “After aU,” he said to 
himself, “ there is no harm in the oracle. It makes clear to 
you what you think right, and what you think pleasant. There 
is nothing like the oracle, for finding out that.” 

And Jakob recalled, with a smile at his own expense — ^he 
could not recall it without one — ^how he had consulted the 
oracle a few months ago on the question whether he should 
treat his wayward flock to a thundering invective on their 
hardness of heart and general impenitence, or whether he 
should accord them a respite of another week. The text 
which had met his eye had been this one: “For the trans- 
gression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of 
Israel.” The congregation did not get their admonition that 
Sunday. 

The young Domini, once having made up his mind, limped 
as fast as he could in -the direction of Miss Varelkamp’s cot- 
tage. Evening was closing in, and the white squares of the 
drawn bhnds gleamed death-hke through the heavy half-hght. 
They spoke their sombre message to him aU the long way up 
the lane, as he stumbled on, preparing carefully worded 
expressions of sympathy and exhortation. It was in a very 
subdued mood that he reached the house. 

Before he could traverse the little stretch of garden, the 
door was cautiously opened, and Betje ran out to meet him. 
She had seen him coming up the road, as she stood peeping 
behind a blind. The pent-up trouble of the day, courageously 


15G 


AN OLD IVIAID’S LOVE. 


kept back before Dorothy, found its vent in the presence of 
this friend of the house. 

“ Oh, Domine,” she whispered, “ you must come in to her 
and speak to her. She hasn’t said anything to me all day, 
and she hasn’t eaten anything either. I found her this morn- 
ing on the floor in the guesbchamber, sitting staring at noth- 
ing, with all that woman’s dresses heaped up and scattered 
about, and the night-light sputtering so, it is a mercy the 
house wasn’t burnt down. And I don’t know rightly what’s 
happened, but I know that he’s gone with the Frenchwoman. 
God cm'se them, the filthy beasts ! ” 

“ Hush, hush ! ” gasped the clergyman. 

“ Don’t hush me, sir ; I know what I’m saying. ‘ Cursed be 
the man that committeth uncleanness. His soid shall be cut 
off from the people.’ And I hope that we never shall see 
either of them again.” 

She hurried the breathless minister into the house, as if 
frightened lest he should escape her, and, opening the sitting- 
room door, she pushed liim in very gently, as she thought, by 
the shoulder. Then she closed the door, and resumed her 
meaningless watch in the dark room adjoining. 

“Well, at any rate she’s got the Domine now,” she said to 
herself, “ and I can do no more.” She had the feeling of one 
who, though not believing much in physicians, yet sends for a 
doctor in sudden flhiess, “pour acquit de conscience,” and 
loiows that all responsibility is thereby removed. 

The Domini, his thoughts in a flutter, found himself sud- 
denly precipitated into obscurity. His lame leg, which was 
never very steady, slipped sideways on the smooth carpet, and 
before he could regain his balance, he was sprawling headlong 
into somebody’s lap. A little scream broke the stillness of 
the sombre apartment. And then somebody laughed — an 
excited, uncomfortable laugh — ^not a merry one. Jakob te 
Bakel picked liimself up, and stood peering in front of him. 
He had lost his spectacles in the fall, and therefore could not 
distinguish the two figures on the sofa. 

“Are you hm*t, Jakob?” said Miss Suzanna’s harsh voice, 
with a note of anxious sympathy in it. 

Dorothy rejoiced to perceive the change of tone. She 


THE DOMINE'S ADVICE. 


157 


crushed down her neivous laughter, and also added, thougli 
still unsteadily, “ Oh, Domine ! are yon hirrt ? ” 

»‘‘No,” said Jakob, with a wi’ench; “Imt I think, mejulf- 
rouw, if you woidd kindly find my spectacles 

“ You are hurt,” intenupted Suzanna decidedly. 

Slie started up from the sofa. “ You shoidd be more care- 
ful, Jakob, with that injured leg of yours.” She ran to the 
door, with her usual energetic movements. “ Betje ! ” she 
called out. “ Where is Betje ? Get the arnica, quick, from 
tlie cupboard in my room, and the little pot of ointment — ^you 
know, the Domine’s.” 

“ It is nothing, my dear juffrobw, I assure you began 

Jakob in gi*eat distress. But Miss van Donselaar signed to 
him to let the old woman have her way. 

Juffrouw Varelkamp bustled about, while Betje brought the 
required medicaments. She checked Dorothea when the latter 
was creeping away with a few words of farewell. “ Go into 
the next room, dearest,” she said — that was a strong word for 
Suzanna ; “ we have not done with each other yet.” And then 
slie laid Jakob down on the couch and nibbed his thigh with 
her own especial ointment, the ointment which she declared 
had done him so much good ah’eady. 

“How can you be so careless, Jakob?” she said in affec- 
tionate chiding ; “ you know that last time you sprained your 
liip, you were ill with it for at least three weeks. It was my 
own fault, I suppose, for stupidly keeping the blinds down ; 
but — but, Jakob, I couldn’t bear to let the sun in to-day.” 

He caught the hand with which she was rubbing him — nib- 
bing him as gently as if it were not all skin and liones — and 
he pressed it silently. Then presently, he said, almost in a 
whisper, “ I am so very sorry, Tante Suze,” and that was aU 
that came of his carefully prepared exhortation. 

“ Tante Suze ! ” He had very rarely used the words, half in 
fun, and half in earnest, and always in Arnout’s presence. 
They went home to the poor woman’s forlorn old heart like a 
knife, but like a surgeon’s knife that heals. 

Suzanna answered nothing. She only rubbed more care- 
fully, and then, having accomplished what she considered 
necessary, she adjusted her invalid on his sofa. “And now, I 


158 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


will give you a cup of tea,” she said, “ your favorite tea. And 
Dorothy Donselaar shall pour it out.” She was almost mili- 
tant in her coddling, as if she could no longer restrain the ten- 
derness she must rain down upon somebody. She went and 
called Dorothy, and with her own hand she got out the tea- 
things. Not the best Sunday tea-things ; it was not Sunday 
enough for that. 

Jakob had had tea enough at home to satisfy even his crav- 
ings, but he wisely said, “ Thank you. Miss Suzanna knew 
what he liked.” 

“Jakob,” said Suzanna abruptly, “you know what has hap- 
pened. They all know.” She paused for a moment. The 
minister bent Ms head in silent acquiescence. “ Do not think,” 
she went on energetically, “ that I mind their knowing. It is 
the fact I deplore, not its pubhcity. Dorothy Donselaar 
knows, and she is soriy, like you.” 

Dorothy busied herself with the tea-cups, and pondered the 
inadequacies of human speech. 

“ Have you,” began Jakob timidly, “ done anything? Have 
you taken any steps ? If you do not mind teUing me, I should 
very much hlte to be informed, julfrouw. Perhaps I might be 
of use to you.” 

“How do you mean?” asked Miss Varelkamp, fixedly gaz- 
ing at the lamp, which Betje had brought in. 

“ Have you communicated with the authorities ? ” 

“ No. What would be the use ? ” 

“ Shall I speak or shall I be sdent ? ” thought hesitating 
Jakob. He almost wished he had the oracle at hand. The 
young man was getting into very loose habits. It was Mgh 
time that he should learn, by compulsion, to act. 

“Arnout is only twenty, you know,” he said at last. “ He 
will not be of age for nearly three years, remeniber that. And 
people who are not of age cannot do as they like.” 

“ I know,” said Suzanna, her eyes still fixed on the lamp. 

“ WeU, you have notMng else to do but to have him brought 
back,” continued Jakob, warming to Ms subject. “This is 
notMng, after aU, but a foohsh escapade ; and he will be glad 
enough, in a few days, to be weU rid of it. You must put 
the pohce on Ms track, Miss Suzanna — ^very privately, of 


THE DOJIINE'S ADVICE. 


159 


coiu'se. And they must tell him that they have orders to 
request him to return, and you will have him with you again 
in forty-eight lioiu’s.” 

“And then ? ” said Suzanna. 

“And then we shall see. He has certainly greatly com- 
promised his career in the Chm-ch. StiU, there have been 
examples of far worse things than this that came right in the 
end. You must not be too much disheartened, Miss Suzanna. 
Arnout’s fall is a very gi’ave one — God forbid I should con- 
done it — but he is still so young, and it wOl be forgotten in 
time.” 

“Forgotten!” echoed Suzanna. “And — she?” 

“ Sm-ely we are not going to pity her ! ” cried Jakob excitedly, 
lifting himself up on his sofa. 

“ No, I do not pity her I ” answered Suzanna gravely. “ But 
I shall learn to do her justice, perhaps — some day — in time. 
I am not sure.” 

After a moment of silence she said, “ I cannot do, Jakob, as 
you suggest.” 

“ Why not, in Heaven’s name ? ” cried the minister ; “ what 
else do you intend ? Do you intend to leave the boy to his 
fate ? That would be too severe a punishment of his foUy, 
Miss Suzanna. I cannot think you would do that. You have 
always loved him too much.” 

“ Peace I ” said Suzanna. “ I will tell you what I think. I 
have had time enough to decide. It is not that I woidd pun- 
ish Amout. I would not punish him at aU. Nor can I any 
longer reckon with his happiness. If he has desti’oyed that, 
he must learn to live without it. Men can do that — ay, and 
women also — and grow old. It is his welfare — ^you under- 
stand me, both of you — ^his welfare that must be my one con- 
sideration. And I must do right. Above all things I must 
strive to do right.” 

She waited, as if for one of them to speak. Then she said, 
with a visible effort, “ He has united himself to the French- 
woman. I can never separate them again. You do not 
understand me ? ” she went on desperately, turning from one 
amazed face to the other. “ He has married her — this — this 
woman. And he must abide by his choice.” 


160 


AN OLD ]\IAID’S LOVE. 


“ But, my dear juffrouw,” began Jakob eagerly, I do not 
understand you, as you say. I do not know what Arnout 
may have told you, but I assure you that you are mistaken. 
He cannot have contracted any legal obhgation towards 
Madame de Mongelas. It is impossible at his age.” 

“You do not understand me, indeed,” said Suzanna mildly. 
“ I did not mean that Arnout had been married legally or in 
church. But are these your highest obligations, Jakob — the 
inscription in a register or the fee to a priest ? To me they 
are but as the seal to a contract that has been signed else- 
where. Marriage, to me, is the choice of one woman by one 
man, once for all, and for ever. There is no fornication but 
unfaithfulness ; there is no adultery but desertion ; there is 
no wedlock but constancy. Let the State recognize it ; and 
the Church consecrate it, so much the better; but neither 
Chiu-ch nor State can wipe away the sin of him who leaves 
the partner of his innocence to lead another woman to the 
altar.” 

“But, dear juffrouw, if that were true, the whole world 
would be hving in adultery ! ” 

“ The men,” said Suzanna quickly. “ God forgive them ! 
I cannot help them. Their sins be on then* own heads. But 
there are good women yet. Hundreds of thousands of 
them.” 

“ But you would have him expiate by a life’s continued 
suffering a moment of frenzy ! ” 

“ Not that. I would have hun not expiate, but fulfil. He 
has chosen. I strove to prevent — God knows how rashly — ^his 
horrible choice ; but I cannot undo it. He has wedded this 
woman in the sight of God. That is his sin ; for such a wed- 
lock as this is a sin, against himself, against me, against 
Dorothy — ^yes, Dorothy, against yon, most of aU. But I can- 
not commit the yet greater sin of compelling him to leave his 
wife, even if the law would permit me to do it. Yes, I know 
that it does so. That is no business of mine. And I cannot 
hope or desire that he should commit the sin of deserting her. 
He has taken her to his bosom for weal or for woe. It is for 
woe. I know it is for woe. I cannot help it. Having done 
wrong, we cannot do further wrong that right may come of 


THE DOMTNE’S ADVICE. 


IGl 


it. If I have upset my own boat and am struggling in the 
waves, would you have me di'ag my neighbor out of liis, that 
I might save myself thereby f ” 

“Then it is out of consideration for the Frenchwoman’s 
feelings,” said the parson, stiU in bewilderment, “ tliat Arnout’s 
f utiu’e is to be sacrificed ? ” 

Suzanna frowned. “You do not understand me indeed,” 
she said. “ It is Arnout alone I am thinking of. Wliat the 
Frenchwoman has done she has done with her eyes open, and 
she must look after herself. But I cannot, I will not, provoke 
Arnout to fiu-ther sin. Least of aU would I provoke hun to 
desertion of the woman he has chosen to be his — wife.” 

“ Then what — if anything — do you intend to do ? ” 

“ I intend hencefortJi to devote myself to the last task that 
is left me on earth. I shall attempt by aU means in my power 
to induce my nephew* to legalize the engagement he has con- 
tracted.” 

“A marriage ! ” cried Jakob, “to this horrible woman ! ” 

“She is his wife already, Jakob. Do not make it more 
difficult for me than it already is. It is horrible ! ” She 
di-opped her face on her hands. 

But this, Jakob thought, was no moment to spare her. 
“ Horrible indeed ! ” he cried, “ too horrible to be possible, 
Juffrouw Varelkamp. That I, the minister of the Gospel, 
should be the one to preach worldly wisdom ! Sm-ely, surely, 
you win change yoiu* way of Blinking, and you wifi, find that 
otliers cannot accept it. By-the-by, though you have never 
spoken of it, Arnout must have a guardian. What does the 
guardian say ? He has a right to be consulted, and the ulti- 
mate decision must legally lie with him.” 

“Arnout has no guardian,” said Miss Varelkamp between 
her closed fingers. 

“But he must have, juffrouw,” persisted Jakob, “as his 
father is dead.” 

“His father is not dead,” said Miss Varelkamp, without 
altering her pose. 

Deep silence fell upon the little company, the silence of 
utter amazement. It lasted till Mejuffrouw Varelkamp lifted 
her face from her hands and said — 

11 


162 


AN OLD MAID'S LOVE. 


“You must not 'think there is any pai'ticular mysteiy. His 
father was not — not the kind of man to educate a httle boy. 
And so, when his mother died, he came to me. I do not know 
where his father is just now, but I do not think he is dead.” 
She said this simply, truthfully, in her usual quiet manner. 
“ You see, there is no guardian to help us,” she said. 

“I am sorry for it,” burst out Jakob vehemently; “you 
would have found that he would never have allowed this 
Quixotic sacrifice. Think of it now, dear juffrouw, while you 
yet can separate them. You are only prolonging a liaison 
which can never in any case be definite. And it he leaves her, 
as he will — ^be it hoped — unless she gives him the slip ” 

“He shall not leave her,” cried Miss Varelkamp passion- 
ately. “ To prevent that must be my object henceforth. If 
she goes from him, and aU effoi’ts to reunite them prove vain, 
then on her head will be the guilt, and not on om-s.” 

“ So be it,” answered the clergyman desperately ; “ but, at 
least, it seems to me that you owe as much to this young lady 
here, the silent partaker of so much suffering, as to Madame 
de Mongelas.” 

“Do not speak of my claims,” interposed Dorothy trem- 
ulously. “ Mynlieer Oostriun proposed to me in yom’ presence, 
but my father and I have both let him know that there coidd 
be no question of a marriage between us. I — as far as I un- 
derstand these matters — I sympatluze deeply with Juffrouw 
Varelkamp, and I also can see no other honorable conclusion 
to the engagement M3aiheer Oostrum has contracted than — 
marriage. The lady is a widow. Ji he loves her, he must 
make her his wife.” 

“ Loves her ! Pooh ! ” said Jakob. 

How calmly they reasoned the matter out, these women. 
How smootlily they arranged for Ai-nout’s futime. Yet, in 
spite of Ms vexation, te Bakel was a man of too keen pene- 
tration not to realize sometliing of the agony of suffering 
which lay liid under these calm exteriors and neatly chosen 
sentences. He pitied them both from the bottom of his sen- 
sitive heart, and it was the excess of pity which made him so 
irritable. And he spoke true when he said he could not 
understand IMiss Suzanna’s position. As a minister of the 


THE DOJIINE’S ADVICE. 


163 


Gospel, he ha^ his clear divisions all cut out and ready to 
hand. Holy wedlock was a union wliich the Church had 
sanctioned. Civil marriages were a compromise which the 
wickedness of the times rendered unavoidable, and aU other 
intercourse between men and women was concupiscence, a 
thing of the devil. These tiniths had he learned from his 
youth upwards ; few offences against the moral law were so 
easily definable, and to speak of young Amout’s runaway esca- 
pade as a matrimonial union was foUy indeed. Such a tem- 
porary connection as Amout’s was a frequent event in the liis- 
tory of sinful mortals. It was to be severely condemned and 
deeply regretted, but it was, from the moment of its origin, a 
wickedness to be airested as soon as possible. “ It is not a 
wickedness in itself,” said Suzanna, “ it becomes a wickedness 
as soon as you arrest it.” To Jakob this was absolute rubbish, 
the raving of a woman distracted by grief. He looked at 
Dorothy’s pale young face, and she returned his gaze without 
flinching. 

“ You are entirely mistaken,” she said proudly, “ if you think 
that there was any contract or pledge between Mynheer Oes- 
trum and me. He is free.” 

They baffled him at every point. He got off his sofa, a look 
of discontent on his face. “ It is vain for me to argue,” he 
said. “ I had best be gone. To-morrow, perhaps, things will 
look different.” 

Suzanna accompanied him into the haU. “ I am glad you 
do that,” he said hastily. “ There is one thing more I am 
yearning to ask you. If — if — I could gain the assiu’ance fr’om 
him, that he has not bound himself as you suppose — what 
then ? ” 

Suzanna’s wan cheeks crimsoned over. “ If he is free, then 
he is free,” she said, and turned away and left the Domine. 
A wild hope had flamed out into her eyes that she could not 
trust herself to let him see. 

She went back to Dorothy, and put her hand on the girl’s 
head. “ Do you not wonder, dear,” she said, “ what such a 
dried-up old maid as I (;an know of these love-matters ? Per- 
haps you are thinking that I have no right to a judgment 
about them. There is a thing that I want to teU you to-night. 


164 


AN OLD ]VLA.ID’S LOVE. 


Dorothy, tliat I have never spoken of to any one for twenty 
years. I am not quite an old maid, dear daughter. I am a 
widow, just sueh another mdow as yourself.” 

Dorothy took the thin fingers in her hand and softly kissed 
them. Ajid then Juffrouw Varelkamp sank down by her side, 
and they sat silent, thinking, both of them, doubtless, of the 
young seapegi-aee over the frontier, till Koos came to the hall 
door to feteh his sister baek. 

“And, dear juffrouw,” said Dorothy, as she adjusted her 
jaeket, “you promise me, do you not, that you will allow 
Betje to look after you? We must not have you falling iU.” 

“Oh, I am all right; I am very strong,” said Miss Vai-el- • 
kamp. 

“ You promise me that you will eat and sleep ? It is the 
only way to send me home content.” 

“I promise,” said Miss Varelkamp. “I have a mission to 
fulfil. I do not quite know how it will shape itself, but I shall 
wateh for it. I must take my guilt upon me and expiate it. 
The wrong which I have done to Arnout I must redi*ess. -To 
right liim in the eyes of the world, iu my heart, in his own 
conseienee most of all — that, heneeforth, must be the objeet of 
my life. Some day, perhaps, I shall be able to add, ‘ in the 
sight of God ’ again ; but at this moment my soul is full of 
bitterness. If you ean help me, will you ? ” 

“ I will help you by all means in my power.” 

“ Even by the saerifiee of yom* own hapi^iness ? ” 

“ Even by the sacrifice of my own happiness,” said Dorothy 
quietly. The words eame easily to her. She did not think 
there was much left to sacrifice. 

“ It is a covenant,” said Suzanna solemnly. “ I have not 
asked you too much, for you told me that you loved liim.” 
And she went back into the room and shut the door upon her- 
self and her loneliness. 


A DIM, RELIGIOUS LIGHT. 


165 


CHAPTER XXV. 

A DEM, RELIGIOUS LIGHT. 

The great Cathedral lay. cool and silent under its softenea 
masses of color. High up, beyond dizzy aspiration, its grey 
arches faded into darkness, across the slender pillars and empty 
carved oak-benches broad stripes of many-tinted brilliance, 
gi'cat splashes of sunshine, fell like rainbows through the 
clouds. Here and there a figure moved in the (lim distance, 
by the tiny yeUow lights of the high altar, or a sombre-robed 
worshipper came slouching up the mighty aisle, and crept into 
one of the many pews, and was stiU. A bell tinkled some- 
where over yonder, far away in the vastness, and a door 
banged discreetly, with a padded bang, near the entry. Over 
aU the unfathomable sanctuary, with its wide forest of sombre 
pillars and its lofty walls of gorgeous picturing, lay the holi- 
ness of eternal repose, eternal contemplation, eternal strength. 
And upon the soul of him that entered, fresh from the hurry 
and glare of the hot streets of the city, fell the silence and the 
shadow of the peace of God. And the infinite, that hath no 
beginning because it hath no ending, came for one moment 
and abode in his heart. For this temple of the Eternal, that, 
in its own majestic continuity, stands forth as one letter of the 
message of His greatness, links, even though it be but by brief 
adoration, the Power in whom is no variableness nor shadow 
of turning, to the children of an hour, whose life is as a dream. 
And they stream through, from the turmoil and back into the 
turmoil, and the holy place lies calm and solemn, with its mes- 
sage of infinitude, and in its presence a thousand years are like 
the glory of a summer morning, and a thousand hearts, with 
all then* sorrow and aU theii- thankfulness, are as a drop in the 
bountUess ocean of the Eternal Love. 

“ Zee ze towers. Pootiful view from ze top. And ze treas- 
lu’c. Ze skulls of ze zree holy kings from ze Moors.” 


166 


AN OLD IVIAID'S LOVE. 


Mighty shadows, broadening with every change of light, lay 
upon the chancel. An old priest, hardly discernible in the 
dimness, was shuffling about in the dark richly carved stalls ; 
a little chorister was moving cushions to and fro, bobbing on 
one knee each time he passed the altar. And still the sun- 
beams broke in then- prismatic splendor across the vasty dark- 
ness, and a thousand slender shafts rose upwards from it, soar- 
ing one above the other, and carrying high into God’s em- 
pju’ean their unending song of silent praise. 

“A word with you, if you please.” 

Aruont Oostmm was standing, with his hands in his pock- 
ets, staring at the uncouth doUs that are huddled together in a 
comer of the south transept. Somebody — a peasant woman 
with a colored shawl over her head — ^had knelt down before 
these and dropped into prayer. A scornful smile played over 
Arnout’s face, subdued by the majesty of holy meditation that 
brooded over the entire temple, but breaking forth at times 
from the recklessness of his own heart. He was in no devo- 
tional mood. And the statues, it must be owned, are gro- 
tesque. 

He turned round hastUy, having recognized the voice, and 
faced Jakob te Bakel. 

“ No ! ” he said fiercely. 

“Arnout,” replied the other quietly, “you will not do me 
that wi'ong. Seeing that I am here, you will listen to me for 
a moment.” 

Arnout realized suddenly what the journey, short as it was, 
involved for his friend. The Domine, as he knew, shrank 
with a sensitiveness that was almost disease, from exposing 
himself and his limp to the notice of strangers, and, further- 
more, it was not hkely that on te Bakel’s very limited budget 
a margin should have been left for unforeseen traveUiug ex- 
penses. He would have to economize on some necessary ex- 
penditm’e the sum he was now sacrificing on the altar of friend- 
ship. 

“We all have our religions,” thought Arnout, with a shimg 
of his shoulders, as he looked from the kneeling peasant- 
woman to the pale young parson ; and he turned sullenly aside 
into an unfrequented corner, and waited for what was to come. 


A DIM, RELIGIOUS LIGHT. 


167 


He leant against the cool grey wall, in the shadow. And be- 
yond the gi’eat gates of the chancel, in a silence broken by 
the occasional fall of reverent feet, waited the holy edifice, se- 
renely solemn, under the ceaseless down-pour of its changing 
light and shade. 

“ I am not going to discuss subjects with you,” began Jakob, 
“ which your heart had best discuss with itself. I am only 
going to ask you one or two questions. I have come here on 
purpose. And I trust you will answer them.” 

Arnout bent his head — hesitatingly — in doubtful acquies- 
cence. 

‘‘You left Wyk — did you not, Oostinim — of your omti free 
will and good pleasure ? ” 

“ Most certainly,” said Amout, with undue energy. 

“ So I understand. And you do not intend — at this present 
moment — to return to it ? ” 

“ Never ! ” replied Amout more energetically still. And 
then he lapsed into his former sullen manner, and began strik- 
ing his walking-stick against the side of his boot. 

“ You know, I suppose,” continued te Bakel, “ that, being a 
minor, you can be compelled to return.” 

“ By whom ? ” asked Amout scornfully. 

“ By those whom the law constitutes your natural guard- 
ians,” answered the Domine, somewhat at a loss. 

“ I have no guardian,” said Amout. “ I once asked about 
it. She said it was not necessary to appoint one — as I can 
very well understand it is not, when a fellow has not a penny 
in the world.” 

Jakob was blundering. He hastened to shift his gi’mind. . 

“Tme,” he said. “You have not a penny in the world. 
How are you going to live ? ” 

The blow stmck home, and, therefore, it roused all Arnout’s 
donnant irritation. 

“ I shall answer that question,” he said angrily, “ when I 
come to you for assistance. Is there anything more that you 
consider claims your interference ? ” 

Te Bakel felt his helplessness against this rampart of cool 
resolve. “Yes,” he said bluntly, “there is something more. 
Your aunt ” — a thundercloud crept over Aimout’s forehead — 


168 


AN OLD MAID’S LOIHE. 


“ we will not speak of your aunt. She still lives. Yon maj' 
be glad to hear that.” He paused. 

“ It is a matter of complete indifference to me,” said Arnont, 
with a weary dignity which would have been intensely com- 
ical but for the pity of the thing. “ She is dead to me, and 
wiU remain so.” 

A beautiful expression of reverent yearning came over the 
Domine’s emaciated features. 

“ There are resuscitations,” he said quietly. “ Lazarus had 
been dead three days. And there are a good many things 
dead in yom* heart at this moment, Arnont, which tJhrist in 
His owm good time may pass by to wake.” 

Arnout did not answer. He stniek liis stick against his boot. 
He looked bored. 

“ Do not let us speak of yom* aunt any more just now. You 
wUl never retirni to Wyk, you say. Well, it is the one comer 
of the earth where you wiU always be loved and always be 
made welcome. And Dorothy van Donselaar ? Have you no 
message for her ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Araout ; “ teU her I am happier than I ever im- 
agined possible.” 

“ Happier ! ” echoed Jakob incredulously. 

“ Yes,” replied Arnout, “ happier. Go and teU her that, if 
you choose.” 

“ I do not choose,” said Jakob indignantly. “ To begin with, 
I do not believe it ; and, in the second place, you may look for 
another messenger to carry such an insult to the giid whom you 
have taught to love you, and whom you have deserted.” 

But his words, which he had expected to stiTke Arnout to 
the dust, were destined to produee the very opposite effect. 
They filled the young delinquent with righteous protestation.” 

“ By the accusations w^hich you bring against me,” he said, 
speaking calmly enough in his disgust, “ you prove how un- 
fitted you are to call me to account. It is untrae that Miss 
van Donselaar loves me. On the contrary — and you see I am 
not ashamed to tell it — she has refused me.” 

“ I do not doubt ” began Jakob. 

“ She has refused me before there was any question of inter- 
course between me and the Vicomtesse de Mongelas,” Arnout 


A DDI, RELIGIOUS LIGHT. 


1G9 


went on, cmsliing down the other’s opposition, and glorying 
in his own abasement. “ She has refused me because, socially 
and financially, I was not worthy of her hand. I was a mhal- 
liance , — do you understand me? — and the Juffrouw van Don- 
selaar does not approve of a mesalliance^ He rejoiced in the 
words ; they were music — wild, discordant music — to his soid. 

“ I know nothing of these matters,” answered Jakob, grasp- 
ing the situation with ready wit, “ nor how far can go a fathers 
authority or a daughter’s submission ; but in my own heart I 
feel that she loves you, and that you have deserted her.” 

Arnout’s face grew purple with passion and alarm. “ You 
he ! ” he said fiercely. “ Coward, you he ! ” Had he not been so 
strong, and the pastor so weak, I think he would have caught 
him by the throat and shaken him, despite the sacredness of 
tlie place in which they stood. 

But Jakob, weak and nervous as he was, was stih the last 
man to be bulhed into submission. 

“ You tell me that I speak untruth,” he said, throwing back 
his head, “ because at this moment I come to you with a mes- 
sage from God. You recognize it j you reject it ; and there- 
fore you give the messenger the he. It is the old stoiy. You 
do not hurt the messenger, and the message remains. I leave 
it with you. By this dwelling-place of the Most High, in which 
we stand, by yonder cross uphfted for the redemption of all 
such as err, by the hght of God amid the darkness, speaking 
at this moment in your heart, I leave it with you — may it re- 
main with you, and torture you, and bring you comfort ! She 
loves you, and you have deserted her.” 

He turned and went. Amout caught him up before he liad 
rejiched the chancel-gates. 

“ Do not think you have convinced me of the error of my 
ways,” he said angrily. “ You had much better not have come. 
You have done far more hann than good. I don’t believe 
you, and I am not afraid of you. And even if it were true, 
only it isn’t, I should not care.” 

Jakob did not answer. He did not even turn once more to 
look upon his quondam friend. He could not. He limped 
away into the vast cathedral, behmd a pillar, into the dark- 
ness, out of sight. 


170 


AN OLD IMAID’S LOVE. 


Anioiit stood still, where the other had left him. He stood 
there for a long time, gazmg down the aisle. The scarlet- 
coated “ Swiss,” attracted by his motionless figure, passed near 
liiin once or twice, and wondered what he was staring at. 
There was nothing amiss, as far as the Swiss could see. And 
for adoration his face was turned the wrong way. Perhaps 
these heretics prayed with their backs to the altar. 

At length Amout stirred and, looking up, saw the man 
watching him. He beckoned him towards him, and gave him 
a small piece of money. “ This is a very fine old cathedral of 
yours,” he said lightly. “ I am a stranger in the town. Can 
you tell me where I could get a really good cigar ? ” 

He was in one of those moods when a man’s words and ac- 
tions all lie outside himself. 

Jakob te Bakel had left the cathedral and was half-way 
across the Domplatz before he remembered why he had come 
to Cologne. 

He had come, not to adjure Arnout or to accuse him, but to 
obtain an answer to that one question which he had suggested 
to Miss Varelkamp in taking leave of her. And he had not 
even asked it. 

To return to Amout he felt to be out of the question. 
And as no other opportunity of procuring information could 
possibly present itself, nothhig remained for liim but to 
take the train and depart. His excursion had proved frait- 
less. 

He had now been in the city for barely two hours. On his 
andval at the station, he had gone straight to the hotel close 
at hand, and having there boldly inquired for “Herr Oos- 
tram,” had been told that the gentleman had gone out, but 
that his sister, Madame la Vicomtesse, was in her room. He 
had dechned to see Madame la Vicomtesse, and had followed 
monsieiu' into the cathedral. So far his pm’suit, in its very 
bluntness, had been most successful. How could he have been 
so stupid as to forget the object of his coming? What had 
they talked about ? He could only remember Dorothy Donse- 
laar. He should have left that young lady out of the conver- 
sation altogether. He was no diplomat, he told himself with 
a dreary smile. 


A DIM, RELIGIOUS LIGHT. 


. 171 


For one moment the idea suggested itself to him that he 
might attempt to obtain an interview with Madame de Mon- 
gelas. But he recoiled from that idea immediately in ten’or 
and disgust. He had met the woman on two occasions only — 
the first, when Amout carried her into the house subsequently 
to her accident ; the second, when she was brought down be- 
fore them all, just after the young student had asked Dorothy 
to be his wife. On neither occasion had te Bakel ventured to 
address her. His French was bad. His manners were bad. 
His knowledge of the world was very rudimentary, and his ap- 
preciation of such charming creatures as Madame de Mongelas 
was altogether a monstrosity. As for that lady’s opinion of 
him, she had summed it up very briefly to Arnout immediately 
after their second meeting. 

“ I do not doubt, mon cher,” she had said, “ that your friend 
is impossibly good, and that he achieves aU manner of impos- 
sible things. He is impossible altogether. Pious ! I will be- 
heve that he is pious. II ne manquerait plus que ga avec nn 
pared masque de pretre. He cannot help being pious, my 
dear chevalier, or his face would have been no good.” 

No, it would be worse than useless for him to attempt an ex- 
planation with Madame de Mongelas. Fortunately, moreover, 
it would be impossible. She would refuse to see him, and by 
what title could he gain admittance ? He walked across the 
square and down towards the hotel and the great bridge which 
spans the Rhine. He did not know where he was going, and 
he did not much care. All the sights and sounds of these 
strange surroundings, which would otherwise have charmed 
him, now passed unheeded by. A square-faced tram-driver 
with a pancake-cap called out to him in German; he had 
nearly got entangled under the horses’ feet. Somebody wanted 
to seU him photographs, or, if he would not have those, real 
eau-de-cologne. Half a dozen touts cried out their eternal 
question about the cathedral towers, and a small detachment 
of shabby-looking soldiers tramped past, hot and dusty, in 
their soiled linens, under the glare of the unclouded sun. He 
shrank back, on to the naiTOW footway, close under the win- 
dows of the hotel. 

It is you,” she said, bending forward from her balcony, “ le 


172 


AN OLD IVIAID'S LOVE. 


pasteur ! Come iip-stairs and see me. I want to talk to you 
— and to them all.” 

He looked up vaguely, as one who hears a voice in his 
dreams. And he saw the false Frenchwoman gazing down 
upon him, close by, on the first story, just over liis head. Her 
white arm hung over the side of the balcony ; he noticed the 
sparkle of the massive gold band which encircled it. 

“ Come up-stairs,” she said imperiously. Faites-vous an- 
noncer. I am here under my own name. Of course.” 

He hesitated for a moment. “I wiU come, madame,” he 
said. He walked round to the hotel door, and having found 
one of the waiters he told him in his shy, clumsy manner to 
take up the name of “ Herr Pfaircr te Bakel ” to the “ Frau 
Burggi’afin von Mongelas.” He was very much perturbed by 
the prospect of the ordeal before him, yet he could not help 
smiling also at the thought of the strangeness of a tete-d-tete 
between so humble a personage as himself and the magnifi- 
cent creature who had spuited away young Ai’iiout Oostnun. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 

He had to wait for a few moments in the reading-room. Of 
course that room held the inevitable Englishman, close shaven 
and well bnished, with his check suit and crimson neck, swal- 
lowed up in a deep leather chair and a copy of yesterday’s 
Times. Jalcob had never seen a live Enghshman. There are 
people still abroad, in out-of-the-way corners, who never have. 
He eyed him with considerable cuiaosity, having always heard 
so much evil of the race. He thought he had never come 
across so clean a creatiu-e before. He anaved at the conclu- 
sion that the man was sent out as an advertisement, like all 
things English, of somebody’s soap. 

He had to wait just long enough for Madame de Mongelas 
to aiTange the disorder in which she received him. Madame 
de Mongelas was fond of simpheity, the kind of simplicity that 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 


173 


costs a fortune to keep up. Despite her thirty odd siunmers 
she had not yet given over, for instance, wearing wliite saut- 
du-lits, covered ahnost entirely with costly lace ; she coidd not 
bear putting on the same pair of hght gloves twice, and she 
had a predilection for light gloves — tdl they went out of fash- 
ion. She enjoyed having plenty of roses in her sitting-room 
in winter, and when roses got too common towards summer- 
tune, she could no longer endure them, but prefen’ed orchids, 
whereby she showed that she had no vulgar tastes. Only she 
said she hked her pleasures in homoeopathic doses, a httle at a 
tune, and that little good, wliich sounded very modest and rea- 
sonable, but wliich really meant that she opened half a dozen 
bottles of the costhest elixir of enjoyment, took a spoonful of 
each, and then threw away the rest. 

“ Sit down,” she commanded, as soon as te Bakel was ush- 
ered into her presence. “ Sit down there, against ’the hght, 
where you can see me. And sit still. I have sometliing to say 
to you. And to all those good people. You understand ? ” 

Jakob was silent. He did as the lady had bidden him. 
And then he waited for what was to come. 

But in the meantime, he could not lielji castmg furtive 
half -frightened glances at the siren on the sofa. She was re- 
chning in an easy abandonment ; the injured foot — its dauity 
brown shpper a-ghtter with beads — lay coquettishly installed 
on a square of blue satin, edged with swansdown, the soft 
folds of her mushn wrapper fell back from the slender ankle, 
and her loose sleeve, as she lifted her hand to her haii* with a 
graceful, careless movement, fell back also, ahnost to the 
shoidder, while the heavy band of massive gold shpped down- 
wards half-way to her elbow, flushing, as it passed, with a 
momentaiy play of color the alabaster roundness of the arm. 
In her lap lay a heap of brilliantly colored hothouse flowers ; 
at her side, on a common hotel plate, were a couple of peaches 
half -hidden among leaves. She selected a scarlet cactus from 
her nosegay, and began plucking out some of its many stamens. 

“ I am very beautiful,” she said to herself, “ and I am a 
woman. Let me give him two minutes’ time. We say most 
things, as a rifle, we women, before we begin to speak.” 

In that softly shaded, softly perfumed room, with summer 


174 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


stealing silently, in a glitter of mellow warmth and sunlight, 
through the shelter of the closed Venetian blinds, with the far- 
away sounds of the city dying into di-eamy music, and that 
beautiful woman on her sofa before him, among her laces and 
her flowers — in the languor, and the luxury, and the repose, 
the quiet clergyman felt creeping over him something of the 
sweetness of sin. He told himself, bnisquely, that he could un- 
derstand, in some faint measure, Arnout’s folly, Arnout’s mad- 
ness, Arnout’s crime. He clung to the last word. The nearer 
the young man’s deed came to his heart, the more flrmly did 
he condemn, because he condoned it. Amout’s crime. That 
was the end of it aU. 

Madame de Mongelas watched him, from the comers of her 
eyes, with ill-concealed amusement. She knew, with the in- 
stinct of her kind, that he was conscious of her beauty ; even 
while he repelled it, she knew that he was conscious of it. From 
him she would neither expect a higher tribute, nor would she 
have desmed one. To read in his patient eyes, “ You are evil, 
and a thing to be feared. I fear you,” was more than sufficient. 
And — ^woman that she was, she did not object to these smaller 
conquests — no conquest was too small to be sweet. 

“Avow,” she said, breaking the silence, “ Monsieur le Pas- 
teur, that I am not an ugly woman, and that your frioiid, in 
seleeting me as an object of his homage, has at least shown his 
excellent taste.” 

The veiy calmness, the insolence of the thing — the coarse- 
ness, as he thought — faii’ly took his breath away. He did not 
know that in the society in which she was accustomed to move, 
such things “said themselves” between men and women. 
Still less did he know that she was carefully seleeting her 
words, as she might have done in the presence of a girl like 
Dorothy, so as not to offend his prudery. She prided herself 
— and not unreasonably — upon her habitual moderation in 
frivolous speech, and she had often exposed herself in her own 
circle to the charge of preciseness. She was not a woman 
with whom men took hberties, until she chose to permit them, 
and her house in Paris, as long as she had presided in it, was 
not one of those in which you said what you meant exactly as 
you meant it. You could say it, if you only knew how. And 


A DAUGHTER OF E\"E. 


175 


I nobody does, except a Parisian, Te Bakel had never spent an 
; hour with Madaine de Mongelas’s Parisian friends. 

I “Ah well,” she said, “ you are not pohte. But I presiune I 
’ may take your sdence to mean consent. And avow, in any 
i case, that if I am not beautiful, I am at least amiable. You 
come here, on pm’pose to take him away from me, and I — I 
call you into my presence, and I say to you that you ai-e, at 
any rate, a faithful friend, and I offer you a glass of wine ! 
Shall we drink his health ? ” She pointed, as she spoke, to a 
bottle of Rhenish wine standing on a side-table — “ Steinberger 
Cabinet,” by the way — at least, so the hotel wine-hst said. 

She was playing with him. He colored uncomfortably, and 
moved in his chair, “ Madame,” he said gravely, “ the man of 
whom you are speaking may be here at any moment. If you 
have anything to say to me, I beg of you to say it, and to let 
me go.” f 

She looked him full in the face, and smiled. “ No,” she said, 
“ he will not be back for some time yet. I have told liim to 
leave me for two hom’s and a half. You see that I have hirri 
under control.” 

“ No doubt you have,” cried Jakob, “ or He checked 

himself, 

“Or^he would not have come with me? Ah, Monsiem* le 
Pasteur, forgive me that I say it, but you have not the man- 
ners of our abbes. It remains to be seen whether he woidd 
not have done so. Would you like him to teU you he is free ? ” 

“No,” said Jakob; “such avowal would be vain.” 

“ You aU think him a cliild,” continued Madame de Monge- 
las. “ He is young, I grant it you, and inexperienced ; but he 
has the heart of a gentleman in him, and the making of a man. 
He will be a brave man yet, and a happy one, and you vdll aU 
be proud of him — over yonder in your country of fish and 
frogs.” 

- “Ah, madame,” cried Jakob, piteously, folding his hands 
without knowing that he did it. “And do you say that, you, 
who are precipitating him into his ruin ? ” 

She laughed out loud — a meriy musical laugh, and she threw, 
with a light twist of the hand, her half-destroyed cactus-flower 
into the Domine’s lap. “ I beg of you,” she said, “ no tragedy ! 


176 


AN OLD JVLUD'S LOVE. 


That is just what I wanted to speak to you about. Let us 
have no spoiling of sleeps and of digestions. I do not want 
to ruin anybody. Ruin ! Fie ! It sounds of the Seine, and 
the Morgue, and the Petit Journal. Listen ! ” she went on 
more earnestly, “ and let me say my little say. By-the-by, do 
you know what passed between yom* good Miss Varelkamp 
and me on that Saturday night — the day before yesterday ? 
Tiens — I am not mistaken — it was only the day before yester- 
day.” 

“No,” said Jakob. “I do not.” 

“ Very weU. That is how I prefer it. Wlien you go baek 
to her, tell her I have forgotten it. We quan-elled, you under- 
stand, but I have forgotten the partieulars. I coidd not re- 
peat them to you, if you asked for them. Be sui’e to teU her 
that I bade you say I had forgotten.” 

“But, madame, that is hardly ex^t,” said truth-loving Ja- 
kob. “ Let me say that you are williug to forget.” 

“ Ciel, qu’d est assommant ! ” she cried with heartfelt convic- 
tion. “ TeU her, then, that I do not recaU it. Que je ne me 
rappeUe rien. VoUti. And now imderstand also clearly,” she 
went on, “ and let your friends understand with you, that there 
is to be no question of ruining my little Ai-nout. FinaiiciaUy, 
if I am rightly informed — and the poor boy is deUghtfijUy sin- 
cere — there is nothing to ruin. He was born, as it appears to 
me, ‘ sold up ’ — ‘ flambe,’ from his mothers — ahem — berceau — 
is it not so ? ” 

“ He has certainly not a penny in the world,” said Jakob 
with eager candor. 

“ I know it,” she answered ; “ but that, in this case, wiU prove 
of no importance. I have money enough for the present, and 
he is welcome to his sliai’e of it as long as it lasts. Ali, bah ! 
my theory with money has ever been that when it is aU gone 
there wiU always be more. We shaU not trouble la tante for 
money ; you can teU her that too, if you like. And you can 
teU dear Tante Croesus ; I always appreciated Tante Croesus. 
She might have been a charming woman, with better oppor- 
tunities, and less of that bourgeois love of cash. I suppose,” 
she said, suddenly changing her tone, and looking liim again 
fuU in the face with those beautiful eyes of hers that troubled 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 


177 


his timid soul, “ I suppose, Monsieur le Pasteur, that you think 
me an adventuress — ^heiii f ” 

He colored again, and looked away. 

Look me in the face,” she said, so imperiously that he could 
not but obey. His eyes were fascinated and drawn towards 
lier. She held him by her very consciousness of power. 
“ The woman of the Bible ? Mary Magdalen, minus the peni- 
tence and plus the devils— dites ? ” 

He did not answer, but he sat stupidly staring at her — hot, 
flushed, weary, utterly uncomfortable. 

“ You are mistaken,” she said coolly, and she took her eyes 
off him mercifully and released him. “ You are breaking one 
of the commandments at this moment. Monsieur le Reverend. 
I do not know the number, but it says that you should not 
suppose villainous things of your neighbor, nor of your neigh- 
bors wife, nor even of any of the animals in your neighbors 
stables or basse corn*. But I forgive you, because it is only 
natural, and we cannot expect you to be as good as you tliink 
you are. We must not be exorbitant, and that would be ask- 
ing too much. But I am not an adventuress. My name is ex- 
actly what I say it is, and I have never used an alias in my 
life. You see I have not done so even here ; I have merely 
said, ^Amout is my brother.’ And you will not deny the truth 
of that, I presume. Do you not call us your ^ chers fr^res ’ a 
liundred times in the course of one ^ preche ’ ? I should like to 
hear you preach, my dear pastor. Perhaps you would convert 
me, and then I could eat meat on Fridays, and perhaps I 
would many a Protestant abb 6 . Ce serait une fin, 5 a, comine 
une a utre. Ca ne manquerait pas, au moins, d’originahte. 
But the name I bear, my good monsieur, is one of the oldest 
ill France, and the title which so charmed youi- fat widow is 
as genuinely and legally mine as if it stiU could procure me 
the^grandes entrees’ at Versailles. Not that I should have 
coveted those, no, nor obtained them. I am of another sur- 
rounding — I ! — I prefer les ^ petites sorties ’ — 1&. ou les gens du 
monde ne vont pas. 

“ So far, so good. And now with regard to my little Ai-nout.” 
She took a peach from the plate, and began negligently peehng 
it with lier rosy-tipped fingers. “ My comphments— the com- 
12 


178 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


pliinents of Madame la Vicomtesse de Mongelas — to the good 
friends at Wyk, and I cannot abandon my preux chevalier. I 
am going to keep him for a httle, only for a httle, until we are 
tu’cd of each other, and then I am going to send him back to 
you, and you can kill the fatted calf. By-the-by, you might 
begin to fatten him already. It would occupy you, en attend- 
ant, and it is impossible to say how soon the crisis may come.” 

Tears of spite and helpless regret came mto Jakob’s eyes. 
He bowed his head on his hand so that she might not see them. 

She noticed the movement, and paused, poising her peach 
between finger and thumb. “Mon ami,” she said, “I have 
pained you. Forgive me. But how strange you are in yom* 
country ! I think the damp must make you so inclined to 
melancholy. Your soids are like sweet cakes, full of goody- 
goodies, that will not rise. Now what hann is there — I entreat 
of you — ^in what I am doing ? I am forming your young col- 
legien ; I am making a man of him. Yom’ old maid ought to 
be gratefid to me, instead of complaining.” 

“ You are — to mention one thing only — destroying his ca- 
reer for good,” said the minister sullenly. 

“iVh, bah, his cai-eer ! La soutane ! He is not fitted for it, 
not even in the country where you marry yom* priests, and 
where, consequently, they have not the pleasm-e of an in- 
trigue. He ^vi^ choose something else, something better. Le 
panache, for instance ! Voil&, ! ” 

“And then the wickedness — ^the sin,” stammered Jakob, fal- 
tering not from any false shame, but from the very weight of 
the holiness of the words addi’essed to so frivolous a creature. 

“ The wickedness ! ” she repeated. “ The sin ! Le pecher ? 
Le fruit defendu ? J’y mords.” And she bit with her peaily 
teeth into the peach which she held in her hand. “ It is a very 
good one,” she added. “ Will you try the other ? But I can- 
not promise it wOl be as good. One never can, you Imow, with 
peaches. And, besides, tastes differ. Now, I like my pleas- 
ures, when I can get them, to have just the slightest taste of 
theft. And you — probably, you hke to buy them for current 
coin of the realm, at the nearest fiower-staU.” 

Jakob often did not even understand her French, far less 
her meaning. He imldly answered that he had few pleasm-es. 


A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 


179 


and that he abhorred all such as were evil in the sight of 
God. 

Do not preach to me,” she said vehemently. “ Tell them, 
once for aU, that I shall keep the boy for a httle. Why ? you 
ask. Because — a woman’s Because. I have not lost my heart 
to him. Miss Dorothy need not be afraid of that. I am too 
old, and too experienced. And he — ^he is very much epris at 
this moment, but it is not so much of me as of life, which I 
represent to him. He is going to have a good time. I shall 
take care of him. And when it is over, I shall send him back 
gueri, and he will marry Miss Dorothy and have half a dozen 
children. It is the finale. I predict it. And they will be 
much happier — mark my words — much happier than they 
would have been if they had married before I had intervened.” 

“And you ? ” said Jakob. 

“And I ? They will invite me to the wedding, but I shall 
not come. I ? Wliat matters it to you f Why do you ask ! 
Qui vivra verra.” 

“ Madame,” said Jakob, rising, “ I have listened to you pa- 
tiently, as you must admit. I have received yom* messages. I 
shall take them to my friends. They are messages, remember 
that, to hearts which are tom by the most terrible suffeiing. 
Two women whose lives you have trampled on and destroyed 
in sheer wantonness, these are your helpless victims ; and yom* 
words will come to them like taunts. I will shield them as 
much as is in my power. that you may rest assiu-ed.” 

The vicomtesse cast her flowers to the ground with a sudden 
movement of impattence. “ But what, then, in Heaven’s name, 
do they expect of me ? ” she cried. “ To sacrifice evei’ything 
for nothing? Je ne veux pas. The one woman has refused 
him ! What does she offer liim if I let him go ? Answer me 
that.” She started up from her couch. “ You, her champion, 
answer, if you dare. Buy liim back, if you can do it. Will 
she marry him — now?” 

“I cannot answer that,” said Jakob. 

“ Your lips say, ‘‘ I know not ; ’ yom* eyes say ‘ No.’ There 
remains his aunt. The tender mercies of his aunt ! We know 
them. I like the boy. I do not love him, but he pleases me. 
He is a good boy, deserving of better things than Wyk and 


J80 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


Miss Varelkampj and the caprices of Miss Dorothy Donselaai’. 
In liis own interest, no. I will not let him go. Adieu, Mon- 
sieur le Pasteur; our conference is at an end, I fancy. You 
must have patience. Patience is a fine virtue, and in such a 
flat country as Holland, you can see a long way from the house- 
tops. I used to call your dear old lady ^ la tante s’use,’ because 
she worked herself to death for her rogue of a nephew. Now 
I shall merely call her ‘ Tattente,’ for she must look out for 
him lienceforth during the next month or so. Is your French 
equal to my poor little jeu de mots ? Yes ? I am glad of that. 
I detest calembours, but somehow I must always make them 
in yoiu’ presence. It is good that we do not see much of each 
other, Monsiem* I’Abbe. In yom* company I fear I should be- 
come a very bad woman. And I am not that. No — really, 
trutlifuUy — I am not that. But you are too good for me, and 
you draw me on. Vous m’agacez. Vous etes un empecheiu’ 
de danser en rond. Shake hands, mon cher, and do not let us 
bear mahce. It is not such a misfortune, perhaps, as you think, 
for you old-fashioned frmnps that I came down among you 
like a wliirlwind. Nay, but shake hands. Wliat, you will not ? 
All, monsieim, vous etes plus m6chant que moi.” 

“ You are — too charming, madame,” he blm-ted out, and 
ran away. 

His question was answered. 


CHAPTER XXVH. 

HDSVROUW BARSSELIUS GIVES A PARTY. 

“ Take your seats. Take yoim seats. Come on to the sofa, 
Suzanna,” said Mevi’ouw Barsselius, busthng about, as fast as 
her rotundity allowed her, in the stiffest of black silks. The 
covers had been taken off the red- velvet chairs in the draw- 
ing-room, and the wax flowers had been carefully dusted out 
with a camel-hair brush under their shining glass-shades. 
Tliere was no unseemly air, however, of festivity ; there was 
only solemnity, and dignity, and expectation. 


MEVROUW BARSSELIUS GIVES A PARTY, 


ISl 


On the ^eat round table stood, riglit in the middle of dark 
crimson cloth, a big newly burnished, newly filled double ink- 
stand, with gleaming, unused pens. And in front of it lay a 
clean pink blotting-pad, also unused, and also expectant, like 
the inkstand, and the red- velvet chaii’s, and the hot face of Mev- 
rouw Barssehus. 

Round the table sat, in various attitudes of awkwardness, 
Juffrouw Varelkamp, Juffrouw van Donselaar, and Domine te 
Bakel. Mevrouw Barsselius was in high spirits. She was en- 
joying herself thoroughly. She was going to make her wdl. 

“Adelaida is late,” said Mevi’ouw Barsselius, as the great gilt 
clock on the mantelpiece — in front of the great gilt miiTor — 
struck eleven. “ Yom- father woidd not approve of Adelaida’s 
unpunctual habits, Dorothy.” 

“He does not approve of mine,” said Dorothy with a 
smde. 

“ You can alford to be unpunctual,” said the widow with 
some asperity. “Adelaida cannot, being a pensioner.” 

As she spoke, the door opened and the expected guest came 
in, also admitting Bijou, who sneaked under the table under 
cover of her skirts. 

Adelaida — othei’wise Mejuffrouw Vonk — was a spinster of 
fifty, with a long body, a long nose, and a squint. She was 
very indignant at the squint, although — in reality — it had be- 
come almost a blessing to her, as it supplied her with a satis- 
factory explanation of her spinsterdom, which left her temper 
and her snilf out of the reckoning. She was a friend of Mev- 
rouw Barsselius’s childhood. “We have been friends,” she 
told everybody — especially those who knew her best, “ for the 
last thirty years at the least ; in fact, ever since we were ba- 
bies together.” Worldly means she had not been blest with, 
she said (and everybody could see that), but a contented mind 
had fallen to her share (this was not so plain to the people 
about her). She came and dined every day with Mevrouw 
Barsselius, the condition being that she should stay with her 
all the evening till half-past ten and read to her while she slept. 
“ I am glad to be able to provide the poor thing with one good 
meal a day,” said the widow. “And I’m sure I don’t gi'udge 
her my evenings,” said Miss Vonk. So they were happy to- 


182 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


gether, evening after evening — ^liappiest when they quarrelled, 
which they very often did. 

And — np to a certain point — the poor pensioner ruled her 
patroness by allowing that lady to bnUy her as much as she 
chose. 

“Yon are late, Adelaida,” remarked the widow with some as- 
perity. “ If the notary had not been late also, I should not 
have admitted yon at all.” 

“ I have not my time at my command, like more favored 
mortals,” answered Mejnffronw Vonk, as she presented her 
leathern cheek to Miss Snzanna. 

It was one of Miss Vonk’s fallacies that she was busy be- 
cause she was poor. 

“ I lock the door as soon as the notary arrives,” went on 
Mevrouw Barssehus, without taking any notice of a remark she 
had heard at least fifty times before. “And I have arranged 
everything with cook about the tradespeople, and so we shall 
be quite undisturbed.” These last words she addressed to Miss 
Snzanna, who bowed her head without hearing them. Miss 
Vonk felt offended at their not having been specially destined 
for her, as the dinner, if it was anybody’s business, more par- 
ticularly belonged to her province. 

Before she could think of anything spiteful to remark — very 
shortly, therefore — the notary was ushered in, a bald old gen- 
tleman, with a lisp, wliich he cultivated, because he considered 
it courtly. He brought his assistant — ^the candidate, as they 
call him — and his permanent witness, whom he ordered to 
wait outside. The candidate, as it happened, was a gentleman 
by birth, a lackadaisical young Jonker, exceedingly bored by 
his preparatory service. However, he espied Dorothy’s sweet 
face, on entering, and brightened up wonderfully under its in- 
fluence. 

“ It is your express wish, as I understand it, mevrouw, that 
aU these persons should be present on this occasion. You 
know that such a proceeding is very unusual,” said the notaiy, 
as he settled his spectacles, and tried aU the pens in succession 
on his thumbnail. Mevrouw Barssehus watched this process 
with growing anxiety. 

“ Yes, mynheer the notary,” she answered ; “ I vush to have 


MEVROUW BARSSELIUS GIVES A PARTY. 183 

no mystery about the matter. I am very peculiarly placed. 
Perhaps it is hardly necessary to explain 

The notary waved his hand deprecatorily. 

“And still it may be better to put things clearly. I like the 
dots on my t’s. Are the pens not suitable, mynheer the no- 
taiy ? ” 

“ They will do,” said the notary, not wishing to commit him- 
self. 

“ You gentlemen, of course, are what I call ‘ no thorough- 
fare.’ Whatever may go in at one side of the head, nothing 
ever comes out at the other.” 

“We lawyers,” said the notary blandly, “ are the priests of 
Themis, mevrouw. The doctor is the confessor of yom* body, 
the parson is the confessor of your soul, and the lawyer is the 
confessor of yom* mind — if I may so put it, of your intelli- 
gence, mevrouw.” 

“ Ha ! ” thought the candidate, “ has it come already ? He 
brought it out early this time.” He smiled knowingly to Doro- 
thy, and was rather disconcerted by her not returning the smile. 

“ I object, sir,” interposed Jakob boldly, “ to the separation 
you establish between soul and intelligence. The two are in- 
dissolubly linked.” 

“ Hush ! hush ! ” interrupted Mevrouw Barsselius in alarm. 
They had come together to talk about her and her affairs. 
Every other subject was tabooed. 

“ I wish to state clearly,” she began again, “ why I have 
asked you all to be present. There must be no disputes, if 
you please, after my death. And I will not have Suzanna say- 
ing, for instance, that my mind was unsoimd because she is 
disappointed in my last will and testament.” 

“ Sister ! ” interrupted Miss Varelkamp indignantly. 

“ Silenee ! ” cried the widow, striking her fat hand on the 
table, and looking down complacently on its many rings. 
“ Mjmheer the notary, if it is my testament, has anybody a 
right to talk but myself ? ” She was enjoying herself im- 
mensely. 

“ Madam,” said the notary, a little peevishly, “ let us proceed 
to business. You wish these ladies to remain in the room ; 
then so be it. Kindly relate to me, as briefly as possible, what 


184 


AN OLD INLVID’S LOVE. 


are the principal dispositions yon wish to make with regard to 
your property, that the two witnesses here present may lie able 
to judge how far they are in harmony wth the draft which I 
here deposit on the table.” 

He lisped over the words as if repeating them by rote — as, 
indeed, must have been the case. This was the opportunity for 
which Mevronw Barsselins had waited. She was not a novice 
in the engrossing art of will-making, and she knew that Dutch 
law requires tliis verbal statement as a prelude to the final 
reading and signing of the document. She hem’d and ha’d, 
and then she sat twiddling her thumbs and looking from one 
to the other of her assembled friends. It was with regret that 
she noticed that only Adelaida seemed to be taking any special 
interest in the proceedings. She vowed in her heaii; that she 
would wake them up. 

“ Will you use the draft as a guide ? ” asked the notary, hold- 
ing it out to her across the table. 

“ No, thank you,” she said shai-ply. “ On such an important 
subject I have my thoughts about me quite clearly enough. 
I have the misfortune,” she continued, assuming a plaintive 
air, “ to be the only person in my family who is blessed with 
a certain amount — a moderate amount — of worldly goods. I 
do not regret the possession ; what I regi’et is their absence as 
regards other people. It would be a far more comfortable ar- 
rangement, notary, if in families everybody had money enough.” 

The notary bowed his head majestically several times and 
drummed his white fingers on the table. The candidate 
laughed, and then coughed to hide it, and looked embarrassed. 

“And yet I don’t know,” added the widow meditatively; 
“ there wouldn’t be much pleasure or use in having money, if 
everybody had it. At any rate, I’ve got it ; and the one ques- 
tion concerning it which is of interest to everybody except my- 
self is just simply this : What will become of it, and who will 
have it, when I die ? The answer is not ” — said the widow, 
dartmg round with malicious emphasis — “Mejuffrouw Ade- 
laida Vonk.” 

“ God forbid it should be ! ” cried the spinster with great 
presence of mind. “ I shall be cold in my grave with trouble 
many years before you think of slipping into yours, Anne- 


JEEVROUW BARSSELIUS GRTCS A PARTY. 


185 


marie. But you’ll have to come to it, none the less, Anne- 
marie.” 

Mevrouw Barssehus was as indignant and as flurried as if 
the other really possessed the power of accelerating her depar- 
ture. “ I shall do as I choose,” she said incontinently, “ and I 
shall have as many real mourners at my funeral as I possibly 
can. I intend therefore, notary, to leave to Mejulfi*ouw Ade- 
laida Voiik — spinster — my green plush arm-chair, the one she is 
sitting in at this moment, as a memorial of the fact that she 
has sat in it regularly every evening since she began to dine 
at my table four years ago come next seventeenth of March. 
Have you put that in, notary ?” 

“ Yes,” said the notary, waking up^ 

“And I fm’thermore leave to the said Mejuffrouw Adelaida 
Vonk the egg-boiler which she presented to me on my last 
bu-thday but one. As she says that she can boil eggs with it,' 
and as she probably is the only person in the world who can 
do so, it seems only right that she should possess it after my 
death. I would give it to her immediately, only that I do not 
■wish to appear inconsiderate.” 

The candidate burst into audible laughter. Me'vrouw Bars- 
sehus stopped. Her intense enjoyment was not of the kind 
which flnds vent in hilarity, and she took this levity of an 
official personage altogether amiss. “ Heer Notary ! ” she said 
in protest. The notaiy frowned at his thoughtless assistant. 
The assistant himself looked for encouragement to the other 
young people. Dorothy’s face wore an expression of disgust. 
The minister was not hstening. 

“ I am not going to sit here to be made a laughing-stock 
of,” began the spinster excitedly. She shot indignant glances 
at te Bakel, but that was mere accident, not design, for she 
aimed them at the widow. “ May I ask, is that all as regards 
me?” 

“ Yes, that is all, Adelaida,” answered the widow, folding her 
hands over her bosom. 

“Then there is just this to add,” continued Miss Vonk, 
“ ‘And, fm-thermore, to the said Adelaida, a pension of one 
hundred florins a year to be paid in monthly instalments.’ 
Mynheer the notary, will you kindly add that -without delay.” 


186 


AN OLD MAID'S LOVE. 


“ Madame,” said the notary with dignity, “ I can take no in- 
structions from any one hut the testatrix.” 

“ You see, Adelaida, yon can’t do it,” cried Mevronw Bars- 
selius in triumph. “ I told you you couldn’t.” 

“ It is a scandal,” cried the spinster. “ She has promised it 
me a hundred times. You know you have, Annemarie ! ” 

“ Yes,” replied Annemarie ; “ but then, that was before you 
broke my best Japanese slop-basin, and before you said you 
wished I was dead.” 

‘^They were accidents, both of them,” cried the spinster, 
bursting into tears. “And the slop-basin has been so care- 
fully mended that no one could see it if you didn’t know. I 
had it done myseK, and it cost me seven florins and seventy- 
five cents.” 

“ Well, ma’am, what do you care about the matter ? ” inter- 
posed the irrepressible candidate, “ if you are going to die be- 
fore the testatrix, anyway ? ” 

“ Silence, Dorsveld ! ” cried the notary peremptorily. “ Mev- 
rouw Barssehus, will you kindly continue, or I shall have to 
leave before your business is concluded? You bequeath to 
your servants Go on.” 

Mevronw Barsselius had been much moved by the sight of 
Adelaida’s tears. “WeU,” she said, “on consideration, you 
may put in that legacy.” 

“ Madame,” rephed the notary, “ I wish, then, that you had 
instructed me to do so sooner. Additions are very annoying, 
now that the deed is made out.” 

“Well, Adelaida, if it can’t be done, it can’t,” said the widow. 
“ You must settle it with the Heer Notary. — To my servants I 
leave a pension of twenty-five florins for each year they have 
been in my service, and to my sister, Suzanna Varelkamp, I 
leave the dear companion of my loneliness. Bijou, with a pen- 
sion of five hundred florins yearly as long as he lives.” 

Once more she looked round triumphantly. Suzanna’s wan- 
dering thoughts had been recalled by the mention of her 
name. 

“ Thank you,” she said indifferently. “ I shall take care of 
him, if he and I survive you, Annemarie.” 

“ He won’t,” said Annemarie. “ Did you ever hear of a dog 


^lEVROUW BARSSELIUS GIVES A PARTY. 


187 


that lived five and twenty years ? He’s wheezy already. Never 
mind. It’U be another Bijon. — The rest of my property goes 
back to my husband’s family.” She waited a moment to en- 
joy the full effect of this announcement. But her audience 
was unappreciative. “ I never told you that, Suzanna.” 

“ No,” said Suzanna. 

“ Except my savings, which are considerable. These I had 
formerly bequeathed in their entirety to my so-called nephew, 
Amout Oostmm, who is no nephew of mine.” 

“Annemarie,” interposed Mejuffrouw Varelkamp, now en- 
tirely aroused to the proceedings, “ surely that has nothing to 
do with the matter, I should wish you, if possible, to leave 
that out.” 

“But that shows you know nothing about law,” objected 
Mevrouw Barssehus confidently. “ I had to teU the notary ex- 
actly, for in legal matters such inaccuracies are fatal. Is it 
not so, Heer Notary? And, besides, your secret is tiresome 
and useless. It is not a real secret, of any interest to anybody, 
about a large fortune or a changeling, or anything of that sort. 
It bores me. It is just the kind of humdrum improfitable 
secret you would naturally have, Suzanna ; and now that the 
boy turns out a hopeless disgrace, I would much rather have 
it known that he in no way belongs to our family. I do not 
really know why I left, or stiU want to leave him, any of my 
money, only he is a plucky boy, and a handsome boy, and I 
thought I might as weU do you the pleasure of letting him 
have it, as there was nobody else. I have been weU rewarded.” 
She unexpectedly began to ciy. Perhaps the emotional pas- 
time she was indulging in tried her nerves more than she real- 
ized. 

She wiped her eyes with her best cambric handkerchief, care- 
fully letting the embroidered monogram fall to the front, and 
then she said in a whining tone, “ I bequeath the rest of my 
possessions to Ai-nout Oostrum, and I make him my heir, on 
condition that within three weeks from the date of this wiU 
and testament he be once more an inmate of the house of Me- 
juffrouw Suzanna Varelkamp, and that within one year from 
the same date aforesaid he be married to Mejuffrouw Dorothy 
van Donselaar.” 


188 


AN OLD MAID'S LOVE. 


Dorothy changed color. She began to understand why she 
had been asked to be present at this extraordinary ceremony. 

“And it he do not fulfil these conditions, I direct that my 
property shall go to the foundation of a charitable fund for the 
poor of the village of Wyk, in which I was bom and educated, 
according to the clauses enumerated in my will ; and I appoint 
as first administrators of the said fund the minister of the par- 
ish, Doming te Bakel, and my charitable yoimg friend, Miss 
Dorothy van Donselaar. I don’t like you, te Bakel, but I be- 
lieve you are a very conscientious man. You are tiresomely 
conscientious, and that is what one wants in a tmstee.” 

“ I have pointed out to Mevi'ouw Barsselius,” began the no- 
tary, “ that a trasteeship vested in a woman ” 

“ Yes, I know,” said the widow. “And so the best thing 
you can do, my dear, is to marry Arnout Oostmm as soon as 
possible.” 

“ Mevrouw,” said Dorothy with some spii’it, “ I do not doubt 
that your intentions are excellent, but I cannot say that they 
are agreeable. If I have any influence in the matter, you aviU 
leave my name altogether out of yom* plans.” 

“Bnt you have no influence, my dear,” said the widow. 
“ Everybody must let me do exactly as I like — is it not so, no- 
tary ? — and I am the only person who has anything to decide 
in the matter.” 

“ My legacy, however, is an understood thing,” said Juffrouw 
Vonk, “ or I don’t dine in this house to-night.” 

“And if you don’t,” cried the widow, bridling, “ there will be 
three lamb cutlets for me, instead of two, that’s aU. No ; now 
I come to think of it, I shan’t let you have a legacy. You’ll 
poison my soup, if you know it’s to bring you a hundred florins 
a year.” 

Mejuffrouw Vonk opened her mouth wide, too indignant for 
immediate speech. 

“ Silence, ladies ! ” said tlie notary hastily. “ If you will 
allow me, I will now proceed to read out the wiU.” 

“ Perhaps,” said Dorothy van Donselaar, “ if our presence is 
no longer required 

“ Yes, it is,” cried Mevrouw Barsselius gleefully. “ I want 
every one to make sure that matters stand as I have said. Oh 


]\IEVROmV BARSSEIJUS GIVES A PARTY. 


189 


yes, by-tlie-by — I have forg^otten one iirovision. If Ai-iioiit 
succeeds to the property, then Domine te Bakel is to have a 
legacy of five himdi-ed florins. You put that in, Heer Notiuy, 
did you not ? ” 

“Yes, yes; you shall hear,” said the notary, and he once 
more adjusted his spectacles, and began to read. 

Mevrouw Barssehus accompanied every weai-isomely 
romided sentence with nods of approval and blinks of the eye- 
lids. Sometimes she closed them for full five seconds of placid 
enjoyment. Sometimes she tapped her fingers on the table. 
And sometimes she said “ juist ” (exactly), so emphatically that 
the notary looked up and frowned. 

In tiie middle of the reading came a loud knock at the door. 
The notary paused, and directed an inquiiang gaze upon the 
mistress of the house. But that lady frowned, and waved her 
hand wdth a majestic gesture of disapproval. So the notary 
resumed his miattractive drone. 

“Furthermore this testatrix testifieth that the aforesaid 
legatee shall be entitled to the receipt of the aforesaid legacy 
on or before any such date as ” 

“ Mevrouw ! ” called out a shiill voice beliind the closed 
door, “ the butcher says that he can’t let you have any lamb 
cutlets this morning ; but he says that if you will take a nice 
little sweetbread ” 

Mevi’ouw Barsselius was off her sofa with amazing nimble- 
ness. She had thrown open the door, and disclosed a pink- 
frockcd and red-faced maid-servant behind it. “ Beast ! ” she 
said, “ hold yom* tongue ! ” Then she slammed-to the door, 
and hmried back to her corner, where she lay gasping for 
breath. 

“ Scratch out the name of Pieternel Jaspers from the will,” 
she said, as soon as she could speak. The notary hesitated. 
“ Scratch it out,” she cried imperiously. “ The pigs shall obey 
me, or I’ll know the reason why.” By which forms of speech 
you will perceive that Mevrouw Barsselius was not a sociahst. 
Slie was not that form of tyrant. 

The reading of the will came to an end at last, and — aU neces- 
sary changes having been effected — the important moment ar- 
rived for ai)pending the signatmes. Mevrouw Barssehus liter- 


190 


AN OLD JIAID'S LOVE. 


ally revelled in this final scene. She took out her spectacle- 
case from her black-silk bag, and then she extracted her spec- 
tacles out of the case, and then she rubbed and re-rubbed the 
glasses dming several minutes, and then she dropped her hand- 
kerchief on the ground, and te Bakel had to pick it up for her, 
and in doing so he trod on Bijou’s tail, and Bijou yelped, and 
Mevrouw Barssehus abused him, and then she rubbed her spec- 
tacles over again, and indulged in a fresh altercation with Miss 
Vonk about that lady’s legacy, and then she selected pens and 
bit them and laid them down again, and at last, when the ex- 
asperated notary openly laid down his watch on the table, she 
carefully inscribed her name — beginning in the wrong place 
in spite of repeated indications — “Anna Maria Varelkamp, 
Widow Dr. R. K. P. Barssehus.” She finished very slowly and 
elaborately, with a fiourish that ended in a spurt and a dozen 
tiny blots; and then sat contemplating her handiwork, her 
whole face aglow with pleasure and content. 

“ Notliing remains now,” she said, looking placidly round, 
as the notary and his assistants appended then* signatures, 
“ but my death to give the document its fuU effect. But you 
must not reckon too positively on that. I intend,"as I have 
often told you, to five for five and twenty years longer. I reckon 
that is my measure, and I don’t think I’m far out. I’ve a 
right to five five years longer than my father did, for I’ve had 
an easier life. And I can make a new will to-mon*ow, can’t I, 
Heer Notary ? ” 

“ You can, certainly,” said the notary. “ But if you do, I 
should advise you to do so less pubhcly, mevi*ouw.” 

“ I don’t intend to make another,” said Mevi’ouw Barssehus 
bluntly. “ It is too expensive, thank you. And I pui’posely 
wished to select this manner once for all, so that everybody 
might know exactly what they had to expect and what they 
had to do. And therefore I think I should like to add a post- 
script ; ‘ that I leave the legacy to Mejuffrouw Adelaida Vonk, 
on condition of her never again saying an ungrateful thing to 
me as long as I five.’ ” 

“ You can’t add a postscript,” said the lawyer testily ; “ and, 
besides, the clause isn’t valid. How is one to find out whether 
you consider the lady to have said such a thing or not?” 


aiEVROUW BARSSELIUS GIVES A PARTY. 


191 


“A codicil, of course, I mean,” answered the widow huffily. 
“ I shall teU on iny deathbed. Of course I shall die of my 
asthma. And I shall have breath enough left to teU about 
that.” 

“ You can’t leave money in a codicil either, madam,” said 
the lawyer ; but I can add a pai’agraph to this deed if you 
wish it. For the last time, I must ask you : Do you wish this 
legacy to be included or not ? ” And he began looking for his 
hat as he spoke. 

“ Stay ! ” cried the spinster, stretching out her lean arm. 
“ For the last time, Anna Maria, shall your conscience speak ? ” 
Oh, bother,” said Mevrouw Barsselius, with a gian. “ Put 
it in, but say that she’s only to have it on condition of the head 
imdertakePs deciding that she has wept sufficient tears at the 
funeral,” 

She clung to this compromise, in spite of the attempts of all 
present to dissuade her ; and ultimately the notary was com- 
2)eUed to inscribe it in the deed. He gave a groan of rehef, 
as he huri’ied out of the house, 

“An awful woman,” he said to the candidate. “ K there 
were two such women among my clients, I would give up the 
work. ” 

But the candidate laughed all the way home. “And the ht- 
tle Miss What’s-her-name, sir,” he said. “ Did you notice her ? 
A very pretty girl ! ” 

“ I never notice such things in business hours,” said the old 
notary severely, “ nor should you.” 

“And so the best thing you people can do,” began the 
widow, as soon as the men of law had retired, “ is to combine 
aU your efforts to get back Aruout Oosti-um in three weeks 
from to-day. If you don’t — whist ! ” she blew an expressive 
breath from the tips of her fingers — “ so much the better for 
the poor of the village of Wyk.” 

“And do you really think, woman,” burst out Suzanna, with 
concentrated indignation, “ that either that innocent girl there ” 
— she pointed to Dorothy — “ or your faitliful friend, or I, want 
the inducement of your beggarly pence to do what we can to 
save the soid of Arnout Oostrum ? Do you know what it is 


192 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


to feel love? Can you imagine that I would not give my 
heart’s blood or my soul’s peace to rescue him ? Yom* legacy, 
forsooth ! Yom- savings ! I would not touch them ! Shall a 
man barter a soid for gold f ” 

“ Suzanna, how dare you speak to me like that ! ” cried the 
widow, in a condition that can only be described as “ flabber- 
gasted.” “ I should order you to leave the room but that I 
imagine that the disgrace and the annoyance have tm-ned your 
head. I have a great mind to go to the notary to-morrow and 
leave Bijou to Adelaida.” 

“ Wlio would not have him,” said Adelaida. “ It is you who 
will weep at my funeral, Annemarie. Bitter, unavailing tears 
for a true friend most cruelly wi-onged.” She brushed out her 
old-fashioned mantflla, as she rose to take leave. 

^^Well?” queried Mevrouw Barsselius, “are you coming to 
dinner, or not ? ” 

Adelaida did not choose to give a direct answer. “ I am of 
a forgiving spirit,” she said, “ and I am accustomed to suffer in- 
justice. You know it, and you treat me accordingly. Fare- 
well ! ” 

“Come, Dorothy, let us also go,” said Suzanna. “Anne- 
marie, I have always striven to be a good sister to you. I would 
be so stdl, but endurance has its hmits. And I may tell you 
frankly, as I told you a day or two ago, that far from striving 
to recall my poor Arnout, I have written to liim, entreating 
hun, commanding him, to stay. If he once leave the woman, 
lie wiU desei-t her. And he must maiTy her — do you under- 
shind ? — he must man-y her. What I can do to effect this piu- 
pose, I shall do — I am doing. So you may well congratulate 
the poor of Wyk. Your miserable money goes to them.” 

Miss Adelaida Vonk had paused near the door to listen. 

“ Lawk-a-daisy me ! ” she said at the end of this tirade. She 
said it in Dutch. She said, “ Oh, little Augusta mine ! ” if any- 
body cares to know. 

“Yes,” said Dorothy. “Let us go, too, dear Miss Varel- 
kanip. “It is as you say, but poor Mevi-ouw Barssehus 
doesn’t understand.” 

The widow began to cry. “ You are all against me,” she 
said, “ and you are very unkind, and you spoil my pleasm-e. 


THE SUN IN HIS ZENITH. 


193 


Tm sure I try to do what I can. He isn’t even a relation of 
mine, and I leave him all my money. And, seeing how stupid 
you are about him, I thought of this clever plan to force you 
to act like reasonable creatures. And I wonH leave my money 
to Madame de Mongelas. And J don’t believe she is a vis- 
countess, or anything. And he can’t marry her ! He shan’t 
marry her ! Suzanna, you’re very wicked and quite crazy, and 
Barssehus always said I was a very good woman of business. 
And I wish I had left all my money to Adelaida Vonk.” 

“ She does not wish for it,” said Adelaida solemnly. “And 
yet she would have used it well.” 

“ I must in all honesty repeat,” interposed Jakob, “ as Miss 
Varelkamp is aware, that I share the opinion of Mevrouw Bars- 
sehus. I have seen the woman, and spoken with her at length. 
He cannot marry her. She does not wish it; and he can- 
not.” 

“ He must,” said Suzanna fiercely. “ What, then, would you 
have this nameless abomination become, in which he has hved 
with her hitherto ? He shall haUow it ; he shall purify it ; and 
all men will say that he did right.” She laid her hand on Dor- 
othy’s arm, and together they left the house. 


CHAPTER XXVHI. 

• • 

THE SUN IN HIS ZENITH. 

It was a glorious morning in July. They were out on the 
teiTace together, the beautiful marble terrace overlooking the 
lake. Above them, far away into immensity, ghttered the 
cloudless sky — a sparkle of pale blue and paler sHver ; at their 
feet, encased by majestic walls of towering granite, shone the 
vast sheet of water, smooth, silent, yet restless, a-quiver with 
ten thousand diamond stars ’neath the ceaseless movement of 
the early sun. The terrace on which they sat hung halfway 
against the mountain, like a white bird arrested in his flight ; 
behind them rose the dusky ohve-gardens, clouded with heat, 
speckled here and there by cottages or bits of stone wall, and 
13 


194 


AN OLD HIAID'S LOVE. 


topped by a tiny yellow sanctuary, that shohe out among the 
trees. 

The sun had as yet barely lifted his head over the side of 
yon dark ridge which cuts the receding sky. A little tremble 
of a breeze, barely a breath to stir the sleeping perfumes, 
played idly round the roses which clung, massed in great 
patches of crimson and yeUow, against the white walls and 
over the marble parapet. And they, opening their bosoms to 
every touch of invigorating life, cast forth their fragrance on 
an air already heavy with sweetness. There were flowers 
everywhere, in bright, many-colored masses, scattered over 
the garden that sank downwards to the lake ; and great jagged 
lines of blooming aloe and cactus ran crosswise over the slopes. 
It was beautiful, if you will — nay, it was siu’jjassingly beauti- 
fid, but its beauty was the beauty of fire, of madness, of cidme 
— of aU things fierce and fair. Even at that early hour, before 
the day had weU begun, there lay over the whole earth — over 
the gleaming stones, and the white ohves, and the glittering 
expanse of air and water — the hot glare of a vitality too in- 
tense to last. Nature was bursting with her own luxuriance, 
sinking beneath the weight of her own fertility, slaying her- 
self. Only by the imi’esting care of many gardeners could the 
flowers of this favored garden still be kept from shrivelling 
into shreds, and even they, if this splendor of sunshine were 
to continue, would soon lie dead beneath its strength. Even 
the blue lake, burning hke polished steel, could bring no 
thoughts of coolness to the soul ; nor did any spot of tranquil 
verdure offer repose to the eye in search of shade. Already 
the lizards were out, crazy, on the baking pavement ; already 
the cicadas, and the grasshoppers, and the thousand and one 
animals that never sleep, were crawling forth in search of 
breakfast, as a reward for the labors of the night. And over 
aU the landscape, and over the soul of man, lay the over- 
whelming glory of a consuming fire, that leaves no strength 
for action, and yet brings no calm for thought — ^the madness 
of an energy that feeds upon itself, and that, quivering with its 
own intensity, can neither wake as they that work, nor sleep 
as they that rest. 

They were out on the terrace then together, she reclining in 


THE SUN IN HIS ZENITH. 


195 


a long-drawn rocking-chair, he on a crimson strip of cai-pet at 
her feet, his yellow head against her knee, his hand in hers. 
With eyes half closed under the hrilhancy of sunshine, and 
thoughts enchained by the plenitude of beauty — half dream- 
ing, half awake, and wholly fascinated ; too weary for pleasure, 
yet too happy to be weary ; engrossed in self and in each other, 
and dead to all that lay outside this sweetness and this lan- 
guor, suspended amid the fall of time in the eternity of a mo- 
ment, yet troubled by a ripple of remembrance that even such 
eternities must pass, and regretting, idly and unconsciously, that 
no human ecstasy can pass beyond the effort of enjoying into 
such placid depths of full fruition that we no longer need to 
feel our bhss. The occasional flutter of the roses — faint and 
unrefreshing as it was — tormented Amout’s heart. It spoke 
of movement, and of things that come and go. And he longed 
to recall the monotonous croak of the httle green frogs at night, 
without beginning, without ending, eternal, unbroken, ever the 
same. He looked forth dreamily on the ripple of the water, 
, tideless, unvailing, unaltering, up and down, from nowhere to 
nowhere, on and on. Amd the wide radiance of heaven sank 
down upon him, omnipresent, omnilucent, never beyond its own 
effulgence, yet never fathomed by its own immensity. And 
the deep ocean of the human soul stin*ed gently in him, asleep 
within itself, untroubled by the passing winds of earth, silent 
and serene, under the hght of its own eternal heaven. He 
wished for nothing more but the loss of strength to wish. 

“ Thus for ever,” he murmured softly. “ For ever and ever.” 

“ Ce serait long,” she said, opening her •eyes, and smiling 
down upon him. She brought her rocking-chair to the ground 
with a sudden swoop. ‘‘ My preux chevaher, you are stiU sen- 
timental. In fact, I think you gi-ow worse. It is good to give 
way to one’s sentiment, and I also am fond of doing so. But 
my sentiment is always practical, and I think, do you know, I 
should lik e another kiss — and some coffee.” 

“ You shall have neither,” he said pettishly, “ because you 
ask for both.” 

“ Ciel,” she said with mock affright, “ I don’t think I can do 
without the coffee ! Avow, Ainout, that I have a right to 
tease you, after what you told me last night.” 


196 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


“ Wliat did I tell you last night ? The same thing, as far as 
I can remember, that I have been teUing you for the last fort- 
night, at least. If you are willing to hear again, sweetest, be 
sm*e that I am not tired of telling. But the musician, when 
he is in love with his own music ” 

She laid her hand laughingly on his lips. 

It is not as bad as that,” she said ; “ you do yourself injus- 
tice. There is nothing so fearful in aU creation as the musician 
who is in love with his own music. I have met him in Paris, 
once or twice. I think I would rather have the cholera than 
meet him again. There, at least, the pain is short and shaip, 
and if it doesn’t go over, you die.” 

“A human being can stand a good deal of pain without dy- 
ing,” he said. 

“ Don’t talk ungi’atefuUy of pain,” she answered impatiently. 
‘‘ You have none at this moment. And the weather is beauti- 
ful.” 

“ I am happy,” he said. “ I would imdo nothing, alter noth- 
ing. But you do not think it is pain to have lost the one 
thing one reverenced on earth ? To look back upon the whole 
dream of one’s youth, and to see ‘ murder ’ written across it ? ” 
Mm-der,” she answered hghtly — ^but her cheek flushed with 
emotion. “Nonsense! a httle vivacity, that is all. YouwTong 
the good lady, who did what she did for your sake, in any 
case. Don’t let’s talk of dismal. subjects. Shall I teU you w’hat 
vou said last night ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“Scene: a miserable tavern-lodging in the middle of the 
night. A lady, on a horsehair couch, in a muddled mass of 
wi-appings, by the light of a common candle. A young gentle- 
man standing in the middle of the uncarpeted floor. Says the 
lady, ^And now, my chevalier, are you going to stay or leave 
me ? ’ Says the gentleman, ‘ Leave you.’ And nearly a fort- 
night later he tells me that he meant it.” 

“ Yes,” said Am out. “ I meant it. What would you have ? 
I did not know my own happiness.” 

“And now — a fortnight afterwards — ^you expect me to hsten 
to these ravings without a smile ? ” 

“A fortnight ! ” he cried vehemently. “ It is a century 1 It 


THE SUN IN HIS ZENITH. 


197 


is a history ! A world ! A new existence ! A new creation ! 
What do you talk with your little woman’s intelligence of these 
minutige of time ? There lies a whole death and resiurection 
between the then and the now. What else could the old Ai-- 
nout say but no? Wkat else could he do but go out into the 
lonehness — the absolute loneliness — and kill himself ? Y ou re- 
claimed him. We killed him together. Do not, I beg of you, 
talk of the past, which was hell ; nor of the future, which may 
be purgatory ; but of the present, which we know to be 
heaven. In that moment when I lost my belief in Aunt Su- 
zanna, my whole existence died within me. I must wake to 
nothing, which is madness, or to love, which is you. Do you, 
then, reproach me for having passed through the river and 
lived ? ” 

He had started to his feet. He was violently excited. Not 
so much, surely, by her words as by his own thoughts. 

“ Cher ami,” she said, “ I reproach you with notliing, save 
with thinking I could reproach you with aught. You wrong 
both me and yourself by the thought. We are insipid, like all 
lovprs, and we can think of no better pastime than making each 
other uncomfortable. We are content with each other. Why 
not admit it and be happy ? I am more than satisfied it shoidd 
be so.” 

“ I adore you,” he said, and he sank down once more by her 
side. 

I wish that you would get me ‘ Jackanapes,’” she said pres- 
ently. “ I cannot bear to be so long without him. And per- 
haps you could find Lucille and ask for the letters and that 
cup of coffee I hinted at just now.” 

“Jackanapes” was an exquisite little grey monkey which Ar- 
nout had found in the town two days ago and bought of an 
itinerant beggar-boy. He had carried it home to Madame de 
Mongelas, and she had been delightfully delighted with it, so 
much so that the monkey was an especial source of pleasure to 
the giver. It was graceful of her to revert to liim at this mo- 
ment, as, in fact, aU things were graceful, and tasteful, in this 
seductive woman, who twisted men’s hearts round her fingers, 
and threw them off again. 

Arnout, who had been sinking back into his delicious rap- 


198 


AN OLD IMAID'S LOVE. 


ture, opened his eyes at the sound of her voice, and got np and 
shook himself. Then he walked off leism-ely in the direction 
of the house. 

They were staying in this great, well-nigh deserted hotel on 
the Lago Maggiore. The house would have been shut up on 
the first of July but for them, and Madame de Mongelas had 
persuaded the hotel-keeper to keep it open. They had come 
here almost immediately from Cologne, and they had now been 
about a fortnight together. Madame de Mongelas frankly ad- 
mitted that, under the circumstances, she preferred a secluded 
spot, and a deserted hotel. She was on intimate teirnis vdth 
her so-called brother, such intimate terms that the hotel they 
inhabited might well be a quiet one. “ It was touching,” said 
the Swiss chambermaid with a wink, ‘‘ to see such affection.” 

“ Notliing unusual,” rephed Lucille, madame’s new personal 
attendant, ‘‘if you remembered that madame and monsieur 
had not seen each other for so many years before the last week 
or two.” 

The vicomtesse had considered it expedient to acknowledge 
to Lucille a secret whieh she could not succeed in keeping 
from her. And Lucille fortunately had one of those impene- 
trable faces which are hereditary among ladies’-maids. 

Madame de Mongelas lay watching Arnout’s departing fig- 
m*e, a smile upon her lips — ^you could not have told, because 
of her drooping eyehds, whether it was a smile of amusement 
or of affection. She fanned herself listlessly with a long-han- 
dled fan of scarlet feathers. It was not that she disliked the 
heat, for it was she who had chosen this land of burning skies 
and blazing slopes. 

“ I am thirsty of warmth,” she had said to Ai-nout. “ Your 
country, with its cold colors and cold dispositions, has chilled 
me to the bones. Let us get away from the grey mists ; you 
are all grey mist in Holland, and your hearts are benumbed 
in the fog. I must see a land once more where the sunshine 
shakes like a blow on the faces and the souls of the people, 
where eyes can ghtter and cheeks can blush with passion, 
where the blood flows hot and the skies are blue, where the 


THE SUN IN HIS ZENITH. 


199 


horses prance and the dogs bite — a land where men kill for 
insult and women for love. And all that is missing in Hol- 
land. I do not say it is desirable, but it does not exist. You 
have nothing but virtues, but they are as near to vices as vir- 
tues possibly can be ; and your vices, if you have them, are only 
those respectable vices that walk and stab in the dark. . Yours 
is an amiable country, but you must not live in it if you possess 
what we call a ‘ temperament.' You must not love wi’ong too 
much, and you must not love right too much, and you must 
not do anything too much, except perhaps, accumulate money, 
and that you can never do too much. Above all, you must 
not feel too much. Faugh ! I would rather be a cow, and 
ruminate. The cows, and the fish, and the frogs are the only 
creatures that hve their fives amid yoim plains and platitudes 
as God intended them to five them. I must go out — out into 
a wider country, among freer hearts. I am thirsting, as I tell . 
you, for heat and sunlight and passion. I am thirsting for the 
motion, and emotion, of fife.” 

“ I should think,” Arnout had said quietly, “ that you, at any 
rate, had no cause to complain of the want of murderous in- 
stincts among Dutchwomen.” 

“ Tiens, that is true. Do you know, I had completely for- 
gotten that unpleasant little incident ! After all, things are 
better in Holland than I thought. But, on the whole, one 
cannot help carrying away the impression that the sentiments 
flow as sluggishly as the water.” 

So they had run through the St. Gothard, and settled doAvn 
at one of the first resting-places on the other side of the Alps, 
a lovely spot — in that favored region you have not far to go 
for lovely spots. And they lay basking in the sunshine — soul 
and body — to their heart’s content, burning and shiiveUing up 
in the stifling glare, at peace with their passions and at war 
with themselves. * 

“ Better and better,” said Madame de Mongelas to herself, 
as she lay there toying with her fan. “ If we stay together 
much longer, I shall find it hard to part.” / 

Amout came back with the monkey, and the coffee, and the 
letters, and the maid. The maid had refused to carry the nion- 


200 


AN OLD ItfAID’S LOVE. 


key, of wMch she was terribly afraid; and Jackanapes, on his 
part, preferred nothing on earth to the company of the man 
who had rescued him from unlimited stripes and promoted him 
to unlimited sweets. He even approved of that man’s caresses 
beyond those of his lavdul mistress, because the latter’s kisses, 
as might have been expected of her character, were often inter- 
rupted by slaps. She liked her monkeys, when they pleased 
her. But, then, on the other hand, they pleased her easily 
when she liked them. 

“ Give me my letters,” she said, holding out her hand ; “ and, 
Jacko, if you want yonr cotfee, you must sit very quiet, till I 
have read them. You can go, Lucille. Monsieur will give me 
what I want.” 

Jacko’s “ coffee ” was a lump of sugar, dipped in that invigo- 
rating beverage. It remains a mystery whether he took it on 
account of the mixture, or in spite of it. He cared for it 
enough, at any rate, to understand that he must sit stiU to ob- 
tain it. He cowered against Madame de Mongelas’s white 
wrapper, and hid in its folds, looking out with puckered-up 
face and agitated eyebrows. His little black features and 
bright, eyes were never stiU for a moment as he sat mum- 
bhng his skinny fingers in silent reproach for their emptiness. 
He bhnked in the sunlight, and then he scratched Ins head. 
Wliat was the use of having coffee and lumps of sugar brought 
out imless he were allowed to partake of them ? He peeped 
up inquii’ingly a score of times, with the same little eager 
movement, at the viscountess reading her letters vdth concen- 
trated face. Then a rtoubled expression came over him ; he 
shot rapid glances at Aimout, who was pelting him — and his 
mistress — wdth yeUow roses, and he ducked back again among 
the soft folds of the muslin, where he curled himself up mtli 
one hand over his pale pink nose. Life was a strange thing to 
Ja^o, a medley of mad desme and brief fruition. For ten 
minutes he was crazy after a lump of sugar, and, lo ! it melted 
in his mouth. But, then, you know, he was only a monkey. 
We are men, dear Amout Oostium, intelligent, immortal men, 
and we manage these things much better. 

Madame de Mongelas smiled over a sentence in her letter, 
and then the comers of her mouth broke down completely. 


THE SUN IN HIS ZENITH. 


201 


and she laughed outright — a hearty, natural laugh that evi- 
dently rippled forth from a genuine source of amusement. 

As she let the paper faU into her lap, Arnout saw that the 
writing was his aunt’s. He turned very pale. 

“ La bonne tante s’use ! ” said the vicomtesse, still laughing ; 
“ you see that the letter is from her ! ” 

“ The superscription was not,” said Amout. 

“ No, it has been sent on from Cologne, and there they put 
a second envelope round it. I asked the hotel-keeper to do so, 
if he got any letters from Holland.” 

“ You thought I would open them ! ” cried Amout aflame. 

“ No, mon cher, not that, perhaps, exactly. StiU, one can- 
not know what may happen. Temptations may arise — we are 
but mortal. The world is very wicked. It should have waited 
to give up sealing-wax and signets till the reign of Utopia was 
officially announced.” 

“ I cannot understand,” cried Amout hotly, “ how you can 
feel any sort of tenderness for a man whom you think capable 
of opening yom* letters ! For me, I could not love, if I did not 
honor ” 

“ Yes, you could, mon cher,” she inteimpted. “ Do not flat- 
ter yourself you are so exacting. But we women have other 
ideas on these matters than men, and you — you men — ^you do 
not love a woman for her virtues, but for her face ! ” 

A genuine scorn, a genuine depth of feeling, rang out in her 
voice, addressed, not to him, but to his sex, and aroused who 
knows by what sad memories of' illusions dead ! She stmek 
down his indignant protest. 

“ Let us not talk of the subject,” she said. “ Do you not 
want to know what kind messages are sent you — ^through me 
— ^by* yoiu* aunt 1 ” And again, as her thoughts reverted to the 
letter, she ghded over her scorn and her sad memories into a 
sonorous laugh. 

“ Tell me, if you wish to,” said Arnout moodily. “ I do not 
care. My aunt is dead to me, as I told you before.” And he 
threw a last rose with such violence at Jacko, that the latter 
sat up, with deeply reproachful glances, and began plaintively 
mbbing his irritated nose. 

“ Leave Jacko alone, Arnout. Dead aunts are no good un- 


202 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


less we inherit their property. I suppose, however, there is 
not much to be expected in that way from Miss Varelkamp.” 

Arnout winced. 

“ In the meantime, I can assure you that she is very much 
ahve. And she has just done me the honor of making me an 
offer of maniage, the first, by-the-by, that I ever received in 
my life.” Again she laughed menily. Araout stood staring 
at her in amazement. 

“ Why do you stare so ? You are not complimentary. Or 
do you mean that I was asked in marriage before ? Monsieur 
le Vicomte transmitted his demand to my father, and my 
father decided that it should be: yes. We manage these 
things better in France, you know. And my father had as 
much notion of love as a China shepherdess.” ♦ 

“May I read my aunt’s letter?” said Arnout, recovering 
himself somewhat. 

“ I will read it to you ; you might not like to see some of the 
mistakes in French the dear old lady makes.” She took up 
the paper. 

“ Madame, 

“ I have done you evil. It would be in vain for me not to 
confess it. God alone can fathom the evil you have done to 
me. And therefore I would ask you : let us repair, as far as 
is in our power, the evil we have done to each other. You 
have taken my boy from me ; take him then, retain him. But 
marry him, love him, be a faitliful wife to him, and remove the 
stain from his name, and from his heart. I surrender him to 
you ; I shall not trouble your repose again. He has not much 
money, but he has a httle. He must learn to earn a little 
more, and then he will have enough to live frugally. Let me 
know that you accept my proposal, and my notary will wiite 
to him about the money. UntU- then I wait your answer. 

“SUZANNA VaRELKAIMP. 

“ P.S. — Miss van Donselaar is well, and content it should 
be so.” 

The Frenchwoman laid the letter down, without reading 
out the postscript. “ It is the intensest tenderness,” she said 


THE SUN IN HIS ZENITH, 


203 


musingly, “ of a heart by nature harsh. But the tenderness 
all goes to you, mon cher. She might have apologized for 
attempting to poison me.’' 

“ Give me the letter,” said Amout. 

“Why?” she asked. “Nonsense. Your aunt is dead. 
You can’t get letters from dead aunts, so you see she wi-ote to 
me.” 

“ Perhaps it is I who am dead,” he answered fiercely, “ but I 
stiU take a spasmodic interest in what occurs on earth. I wish 
you would give me the letter, Dorine.” 

He very rarely called her by her name — he had done so half 
a dozen times, at most. Dropping the “madame” on that 
evening when he had linked his life to hers, he had taken up 
nothing to supply its place. “ You must call me ‘ Dorine,’ ” 
she had said to him on the succeeding morning ; “ my name is 
Dorine.” 

He had trembled to hear her, as a man trembles who is torn 
from his sleep in the middle of a dream. “ Dorine ! ” Wliy 
that name of all ’others ? It sounded so much like Dorothy. 
He would never say “ Dorothy ” again, 

“But I have told you the contents. It is very touching 
and very droU. It is supremely di’oU, when one comes to think 
of it, that she should suggest my becoming a faithful wife.” 
Once more she allowed her eyes to wander away from him, 
into regions of untraceable thought. 

He bent forward to reach for the paper, but she drew it to- 
wards her. There remained that postscript, which it was not 
necessary for liim to see. 

“ Eh bien ? ” she said, as she stretched out her hand for the 
coffee-tray, and, according her attention at length to Jacko’s 
uninterrupted squeaks and tweaks, dipped the largest lump of 
sugar she could find into her cup, “ Eh bien, monsieur ? ” 

“ WThat ? ” said he. 

“ WTiat ? Oh, but you are insupportable ! And your rude- 
ness is phenomenal. One does not say, ‘ What ? ’ but, ‘ Plait-il ? ’ 
Have you nothing to say, then, about this offer of marriage ? 
It is you who are offered — as a lamb on the altar — and to me ! 
And instead of confounding yourself in compliments and ex- 
pressions of rapture, you merely say : ‘ Wkat ? ’ Quoi ! Quoi ! 


204 


AN OLD SLAID’S LOVE. 


C’est du HoUandais, je suppose. La langue des canards. Ah, 
merci. I have not the shghtest desire to become Madame 
Arnout Oostrum, Mevrouw Ai-nout Oostrum, 11, Canal de la 
GrenouiU^re.” 

“ Give me the letter,” said Amout. 

“Mon cher, you are no better than Jacko with his lump of 
sugar. And, at least, the lump of sugar is sweet, while the 
letter is extremely aigre-doux. I don’t think Jacko would 
care to have it. Would you, Jacko? Tiens, la void ! ” 

But the monkey thought differently. He hked the crack- 
ling sound the paper made. And he snatched at it, and darted 
off with a boun^ up into the roses along a piUai* of the por- 
tico, his slender grey tail scattering the rose-leaves as he went. 

“ Come down,” said Amout, taking a lump of sugar from 
the saucer. He effected the exchange with a moment’s negoti- 
ation, for Jacko had no clear conception of the restrictions of 
barter, and preferred the simple arithmetic that one and one 
make two. 

Aimout put the letter in his pocket without looking at it. It 
was a httle incident, but it drove Madame de Mongelas into a 
very bad temper. She did not really mind much whether he 
saw the document or what he did with it ; only she liked to 
have her own way in httle things, as well as in big. 

“ You can answer it for me,” she said spitefully, “ and you 
can say that I decline with thanks. Had you left it to me to 
reply, I shoidd have written as follows ; ” and she repeated, 
considerably altering them, the weU- known lines of the 
Fi-ench poet — 

“ Suzanna, nay, farewell, I neither ask from thee 
Of honor such excess, nor such indignity.” 

“ What next ? ” said Amout. 

“ What next ? ” She held out both her hands. “Another 
quotation : ‘ Cinna, let us be friends. The offer comes from 
me.’ ” 

Amout bent forward and raised the tips of her fingers to his 
hps. 

“You are cruel,” he said, “for you know your power.” 

“ That i§ hard lines on me,” she answered, “ just after you 


THE SUN IN ms ZENITH. 


205 


have had your own way. But, come, I will no longer make 
fun of you. I wiU give you my third and last quotation ; that 
exhausts my whole little classical store. I have only these 
thi-ee : ‘ Who runs to capture wit, brings back stupidity.’ I 
am afraid that is the truest bit in all French literature, and I 
ought to take it to heart. My knowledge of the old periwigs 
is not extensive, however, as you see. I read the modems, and 
so ought you to, Arnout. Your knowledge of nineteenth-cent- 
my writers is not what it might be. It is all very weU to say 
that Musset is your favorite poet. I have nothing against 
Musset — he has been my friend for a dozen years — but he is 
not everybody. If you don’t choose to read Jean Richepin or 
Guy de Maupassant, so be it. But you can’t claim to be an 
educated man, and not know Coppee and Daudet. You must 
go down to the hbrary on the Piazza presently, and see whether 
you can’t find 'Le Nabab’ or ‘Fromont Jeune.’ It is lament- 
able to think how your education has been neglected.” 

“Hum,” said Amout. “It’s blazing hot. I don’t know 
about going down to the Piazza.” 

“ Now, that is just what I like,” she said lazily, stretching 
out her lithe hmbs under their thin covering. “ The sun can 
never be too hot for me. I wish it were always at fever point.” 

“And you sleep under it,” he answered. “ You forget that 
you have no reason to exert yourself.” 

“No,” she said, “nor you. By-the-by, Amout, I had no 
idea you had any money — be it ever so little — as yoim aunt 
says.” 

“ Nor had I,” he answered, coloring. “ I never heard of it.” 

“ Never mind,” she continued indifferently. “ It will do per- 
haps, some day, to fall back upon when aU our present re- 
sources are gone. There is that man again up at his window, 
on the third story. I wish he would go away. I feel sure he 
has followed us from Cologne. Some spy of your aunt’s, I 
suppose.” 

“ I should hardly think that,” replied Amout. “And I did 
not see him at the Cologne station, as you say.” 

“ If he is a spy, you must thrash him, and pitch him into 
the lake. I wish, Arnout, you would thrash somebody.” 

“ Why ? ” asked Arnout in sm-prise. 


206 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


“ It would look SO manly, and I like a man to be strong. 
Y on have a splendid physique, Amout. What a figure ! What 
a chest ! You ought to do something with them except merely 
look handsome and pass your hand through your hair. I am 
glad you keep it short, with just that little wave in it. I de- 
test cm-ls. Amd I detest dark men. You are as fair as a young 
Northern god. There, I am sure I have made amende honor- 
able. And I have earned a couple of books from the library. 
Bring me — ^if you can get it — ^ Dernier Amour.’ ” 

He slipped away from the balustrade against which he had 
been leaning, and walked towards the garden steps, his tall 
shadow black as ink upon the marble in the dazzle of that 
cloudless sky. 

“ Come here. Jackanapes,” said Madame de Mongelas, “ and 
let yourseK be punished for taking your master’s part. You 
are a traitor, and if you were all tail, and no legs, I should call 
you a serpent that I had nmdm’ed at my breast.” 

But Jackanapes preferred his safe perch among the roses. 

“ I am bullied by every one,” she said to herself with a mock 
giimace and a yawn. By the maid, and the monkey, and 
the young man. Juffrouw Varelkamp would be surprised, if 
she knew how the young man bullies me. He has something 
in him to be almost afraid of, a limit, somewhere, to his good 
temper. He is very amiable and sweet-natured and courteous 
— and houp-la I’om-agan ! He is not so easy to manage as I 
imagined ; not half so easy as a little French boulevardier. 
But then, I prefer the rawer material ; though, as for being 
his wife — no, I don’t think I should do for his wife. What is 
your opinion, Monsieur le Vicomte ? ” 

She laughed again to herself at the idea of Miss Suzanna’s 
matchmaking. It seemed to afford her a gi-eat deal of quiet 
amusement. Ajid then she lured down Jacko with another bit 
of sugar, and slapped him for his disobedience when he ven- 
tm-ed to descend. 


THE STRANGER FROM HOME. 


207 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE STRANGER FROM HOME. 

As he passed down the broad steps which led to the flower- 
garden, Ai-nout found himself confronted by the stranger who 
had aroused Madame de Mongelas’s suspicions. The man was 
not a personage, one would have thought, to attract much 
attention or excite much alarm ; he looked a fairly harmless 
old gentleman of independent means and considerable leisure, 
whose age you would have put down at sixty-five or perhaps 
sixty-seven, and whose country, whatever his fatherland may 
have been, was now probably America. He was taU and well, 
if somewhat easily, dressed, while his short hair and long 
whiskers, both of a whitening grey, were evidently carefully 
kept. He looked keenly at Aniout — out of watery eyes — as 
that young Hollander descended towards him, and, nodding 
his head .without removing his hands from his pockets, he 
remarked, as soon as they were close to each other, that it was 
a very warm day. 

Undoubtedly,” said Arnout, and continued his way. But 
the stranger had no intention of letting him escape with such 
ease. He walked on at his side, along the httle platfonn on 
which he had met him, and down the rest of the steps and 
across the garden. Arnout could not but go slowly ; in that 
fiu’iiace of red-handed summer it would have been foohsh- 
ness to hiury. And the grey-haired old gentleman, throwing 
out his long legs with lazy indifference, began a conversation 
about the place, and the scenery, and the climate, and the 
table d’hote, all the tiresome small-talk which, in travelling, 
takes the place of an introduction. 

It was not tdl they had sauntered into the town that the 
stranger adverted to Madame de Mongelas. 

“You are fortunate,” he said pohtely, “in not being here 
alone. It is a quiet spot. I hear that the lady with you is 


208 


AN OLD ItfAID’S LOVE. 


your sister — is she not ? A very beautiful woman, if you vtU 
excuse my taking the liberty of saying so.” 

Arnout bowed stiffly. He did not excuse any liberty at 
all. 

“And I come from a land where beautiful women are far 
from uncommon. I am an American, and my name is Doyer, 
a Dutch name, in fact. I must tell you that I was born in 
Holland, though I left the country when very young. So you 
see I am almost a compatriot of yours, only I have no more 
friends or relations on this side the Atlantic. Nor many on 
that.” 

All this was very unpleasant to Amout. He in no wise 
desired to make any acquaintances, least of all among com- 
patriots or semi-compatriots. And as he picked his way 
through the narrow streets, under canopies of drying maize 
and onions, between the taU, crooked houses, with a narrow 
slit of blue sky at the top, he bethought him how he could 
give the stranger the slip. 

“And from what part of Holland are you, if I may ask ? ” 
said Mr. Doyer. 

“ From Wyk,” replied Aimout with evident constraint. 

“ Indeed. I am from Amsterdam. That is to say, I was 
born in that city. I have no members of my family living 
there now, as far as I know.” 

“ Indeed,” said Amout, in his tirni. He lifted his hat. I 
am going in here,” he said, as he stopped at the little book- 
seller’s in the sunlit Piazza. “ I wish you a very good-day.” 

He walked into the dark shop, and he noticed that the 
stranger lingered for a few moments outside, pretending to 
look over the yeUow-covered novels and queer old prints laid 
out under the gallery that runs round the square. 

“ Cool as a cucumber,” said the old gentleman to himself. 
“Ah, weU, I suppose most young fellows are alike. I dare say 
I should have done much the same thing at his age. When 
you have got a good thing, he thinks, keep it dark.” 

Arnout, having purchased a new novel or two and watched 
the American out of sight, lounged back again into the Piazza 
and down towards the lake. He dragged himself indolently 
past the boats and over the golden shingle, and then he flung 


THE STRANGER FROM HOIVIE. 


305) 


himseK dow^l under the shade of half a dozen stragghng ilex 
trees, and took out of his pocket his aunt Suzanna’s letter. 
He had heard nothing of home and home-matters since his 
pai’ting from Jakob in the cathedral. And no sign of inter- 
coiu’se had passed between him and Suzanna Varelkamp since 
that last word “murderess” spoken on the Saturday night, 
now nearly fourteen days ago. He looked down at the 
familiar handwriting, and angry thoughts swelled upwards in 
his heart. He could not think otherwise than angrily as yet 
of Suzanna. He strove rather not to think of her at all. 
Miu’der ! It was time, as he had said, that she had written 
that word large over aU his past. The woman whom he had 
loved and reverenced as the incarnation of stern duty and 
simple honesty — a mm-deress in wiU. He ascribed her attempt 
to the maddest, nay, the silliest jealousy, and he was wi*oth 
with her, not perhaps even so much because she had lifted her 
hand against a creature he worshipped with amorous infatua- 
tion, as because she had destroyed aU the love of his youth at 
a blow. Whom was he to beheve ? Wliat was he to beheve ? 
Wliy could he not cherish her as he had ever done in the 
happy years gone by ? It was crtiel of her thus to cut away 
the ground from under his feet. Hanging in mid-air, he had 
clutched the hand held out to save him, and had fallen on the 
breast of Madame de Mongelas. Generous, forgiving, deeply 
injured woman ! He felt the blame he heavy on himseK when 
he thought of what she had undergone. It was he who had 
brought her to the house, where hospitahty had tmaied to 
hatred, and where even the life of a guest had not been safe 
from attack. The idea of this violated sanctuary was a hor- 
rible one to Arnout. AH his chivahy had risen up in arms 
to defend the injured one. No sacrifice of his, he felt, could 
ever atone to Madame de Mongelas for the wrong that had 
been done her by him. He looked upon himself as a bearer 
and sharer of the crime. He could have gone down on his 
knees to her to implore her pardon. He did so in the trans- 
ports of his tenderness and his shame. For he surrendered 
his young heart to her in that moment when aU things for- 
sook him, and when the rest and the happiness were gone, he 
found passion and riotous enjoyment and aU the wild ecstasy 
14 


210 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


of living in her kiss and in her smile. He rejoiced in her, in 
her beauty and her talants, and aU the delightful fascination 
which played and glistened about her, and he asked himself 
breathlessly how so lovely and gifted a creatm-e could care to 
waste her charms upon him. And he loved her then, more 
for his own sake, perhaps, than for hers, in his harmless 
boyish vanity and his frantic boyish soitow, and in all the 
wild enthusiasm of a new-found paradise. 

He looked down with half-closed eyes at the letter in his 
hand, and liis di’eamy interest was aiTested by the postscript 
she had left um’ead. 

“ Miss van Donselaar is well, and content it should be so.” 

Perhaps it would have been better had Madame de Monge- 
las simply let him have the words. Now they came upon 
him with the extra meaning of her reticence. And they 
struck home ; he could hardly have told you why. There was 
a simplicity in them which seemed to speak of a great renun- 
ciation. And another sentence came back upon his memoiy 
which often suddenly arose within him, in the midst of the 
most varied occupations. 

“ She loves you, and you have deserted her,” it said. He 
was ti-oubled and vexed, and uncertain what to think. He 
could not but help recognizing the aU-absorbing love for him 
which spoke out of his aunt’s epistle. And then again he told 
himself that in making this strange proposal of mamage she 
was sacidficing him, as she would think, to her crotchety ideas 
of right and wrong. And what business.had she — the would- 
be assassin — with ideas of right and wrong ? Of her allusions 
to the money which was* his — or would be — ^he understood 
notliing. He had never heard of it. Coidd it be true that it 
existed ? There lay the one great thorn among his roses — 
the rankling prick in his fair young flesh — in the ever-present 
thought that he had no money at his disposal, now that he 
wanted it — that it was Madame de Mongelas who settled the 
bills. It was one of the thoughts that, somehow, wake you 
in the middle of the night, and leave you red-hot and uncom- 
fortable under the bedclothes. He hated it, and it clung to 
him. He reckoned out to himself, more or less, what then- 
daily expenses must be, and he told himself, with bopsh con- 


THE STRANGER FROIVI HOME. 


211 


fidence, that Madame de Mongelas’s expenditure was only a 
temporary advance, and that he would find means to repay 
her. His aunt’s suggestion, therefore, was far from nnpleas- 
ing to him, and he strove to convince himself that the money 
was there. Perhaps, even, there was more than she admitted. 
Why should not the soul that could sink to murder pass 
through an intermediate stage of embezzlement ? He would 
not answer his aunt’s letter — ^how could he? — ^but he would 
write to the notary and demand explanations. If there was 
money, why had there not been a guardian ? — Hum ! a guard- 
ian. There, for a moment, his thoughts were arrested. For 
guardians, he remembered, had a habit of making things un- 
pleasant for young minors who go travelling without leave. 

In the evening, after their late dinner, when the sunhght 
was slowly passing from golden flame into that quiet glow, as 
of dying embers, which causes us to steal forth from the newly 
opened windows in vain hope of a breeze — in the evening, 
then, amid the sweet scents and the stillness, ere the noises 
of a summer night had begun, Amout, strolling listlessly on 
the terrace, met the stranger again. Madame de Mongelas 
watched their meeting from her balcony, where she sat among 
white shawls and white roses, with a great Japanese paper 
umbrella in a crimson flare over her head. And Jacko 
watched them, cracking almonds on the broad balustrade by 
his mistress’s side, supremely happy in a narrow silver brace- 
let which the viscountess had dropped round his neck. He 
considered aU strangers impertinences, unless they brought 
him sweets. 

“Come out for a smoke after dinner?” questioned Mr. 
Doyer. “ The best thing a sensible man can do. Would you 
care to try one of my cigars ? I beheve I can venture to 
recommend them. I bought them at Havana myself.” 

Now Amout, hke every genuine Dutchman, loved a good 
cigar more than anything else on this wide, wicked old earth. 
More than home or land or kindred, or the wife of your 
bosom, if you’ve got one, or your favorite make of boots, that 
look nice, and yet don’t hurt you, or any other cherished 
treasure that is very dear and sweet. We aU know the story 


212 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


of my friend Van X , whose wife at last rebelled against 

sitting in perpetual fumes and being smoked aUve, like a 
piece of dead pig. 

“ I bargained for a place at your fireside,” she said, “ but 
not for a place up your chimney. You must choose between 
your cigar and me.” 

She hves with her parents now, and he allows her one half 
of her pin-money, while he has added on the remaining half 
to the price of his after-dinner cigar. 

Amout, then, made friends with the best cigar he had ever 
smoked in his life. 

They talked of many things, such as men talk of who have 
no interests in common, dropping gradually, however, from 
tittle-tattle into more engrossing topics, as the stranger began 
to speak of his travels and his adventures, which had been 
numerous, in various countries of the world. Evidently he 
had seen a good deal of life, and of unusual forms of life, the 
seamy side of the great struggle for existence. And he could 
talk weU of what he had seen, perhaps with a little of too 
evident self-confidence, but that cannot be taken altogether 
amiss in a man who has worked his own way up. He told 
Amout of shooting-parties (where the ground-game was not 
always four-footed) in regions whose names made the young 
fellow long for a map ; and then he drifted back to his own 
youth, and the fatherland of which he said he could no longer 
speak even the language, and he asked Arnout — casually — 
whether he had ever heard the name of Vinkebaan. 

Arnout said he had not. 

‘‘A man of that name used to come and see my father,” 
the stranger continued; “I should like to know what has 
become of him. And then there was another whom I faintly 
remember, called Shnkert, a fellow with a great grog-blossom 
on the top of his nose. And there was young Donselaar, the 
coffee-merchant’s son. He was a little younger than I, and 
he used sometimes to come and play with me. It is all very 
vague, because, you see, I was quite a small boy when we left. 
But I should have liked to hear news of Van Donselaar.” 

Ai-nout lay with his arms crossed on the parapet, watching 
the blue rings from hjs cigar on the heavy air, 


THE STRANGER PROM HOJIE. 


213 


“ You don’t happen to have ever come across the name?” 
said the stranger, casting another of those keen glances at 
him out of his pale eyes. 

“There is a Mynheer van Donselaar in Wyk,” answered 
Arnout. “ What a splendid cigar you have given me ! ” 

“ You are welcome to as many more as you care to smoke. 
No offence 5 I am an old man, and you are a young one. I 
wonder whether your Mynheer van Donselaai* could by any 
possibility be mine. What is his occupation?” 

“He used to have a coffee-broker’s office in Amsterdam. 
He has retired now, and his sons manage it — that is to say, 
he has kept the superintendence. Do you know what flower 
that is — that orange one, something lik e a hly ? ” 

“Olivia, the name is. A coffee-broker! It must be the 
same. And has he a wife and children ? ” 

“ His wife is dead, but he has three children — two sons and 
a daughter.” 

“And it is not true, as I once heard in America, that he 
had married a Miss Varelkamp ? ” 

Amout began to dishke the stranger exceedingly. The 
man knew far too much about home matters. 

“No,” he said curtly. “Miss Varelkamp is my aunt. She 
is unmarried. She has only one other sister living, and her 
name is Barsselius.” 

“Indeed! Your aunt! How very extraordinary. Then 
your mother, I suppose, was a Miss Varelkamp?” 

“Yes,” said Amout, “evidently. I don’t remember her. 
She died when I was flve years old.” 

“Ah,” said the American musingly. “ She died when you 
were five years old. And since then, I presume, you have 
lived with your aunt. Miss Varelkamp ? ” 

“ I never said so,” cried Amout, turning upon him. “ Who 
are you, sir ? You seem to know a good deal of the country 
you left so long ago. And your accent isn’t that of an Ameri- 
can. What is your business with Miss Varelkamp or with 
me ? ” 

“None,” said the stranger politely. “No business, and, as 
far as you are concerned, only pleasure. Excuse me, I was 
merely infening, perhaps somewhat hastily. I intended noth- 


214 


AK OLD maid’s love. 


ing approaching offence ; I assure you my interest in Hol- 
land is of the remotest. Let us talk of something else.” 

“I think I must go hack to madame/’ answered Arnout 
stiffly. “ I am much ohhged to you for your cigar — and good- 
night.” He lifted his hat, and moved off in the direction of 
the balcony. 

“Arnout,” cried out Madame de Mongelas, leaning over the 
side, “ I wrote the most delicious of letters to la Tante Suze, 
but I gave it to Jacko to read, and he has tom it up. So you 
must come and help me to write another, unless we have 
changed our minds. Shall it be ‘ Yes ’ ? ” 

She hung over the balcony, laughing, in a mass of sinking 
sunhght that covered her white figure and her roses with a 
flood of reflected color from the crimson shade overhead. 
And she dropped her arm down the side with a movement of 
abandonment and appeal. “ Shall it be Tes’ ?” she said. 

But she did not wait for his answer. She started forward 
and, catching the delighted Jacko to her bosom in a passion- 
ate embrace, she burst into the coquettish refrain of a song 
that was popular several years ago — 

“No, sir! no, sir! no, sir — no!” 

“Suze?” said Doyer to himself as he walked away. He 
had caught the first few words of her speech. “ Suzanna, of 
course. Gad, how the thing comes back to me ! There’s no 
fool like an old fool, by Jove.” 


CHAPTER XXX. 

THE MISTAKES AND MISHAPS OP KAREL DONSELAAR. 

“ It is perfectly impossible,” said Mynheer van Bonselaar, ’ 
“ perfectly preposterous. It appears to me, woman, that your 
head has become confused by the exciting incidents you have 
witnessed, and that you now see a repetition of the scandal 
wherever you look. Such things are not unusual. I was read- 
ing only the other day of a similar case in the paper. Wait a 
moment, and I wfll see whether I can find it.” 


THE MSTAKES AND MISHAPS OF KAREL DONSELAAR. 215 

He got up and began a diligent search among a pde of 
old newspapers. Perhaps he was not sorry to hide his agi- 
tation. 

Do you mean, mynheer,” queried Betje, even redder in the 
face than usual, “ that I have fancied the whole thing to my- 
self ? Oh dear, no ; I haven’t that gift of imagination. I only 
wish I had, and I could earn more by writing the stories in 
the paper that they give so much money for than I can by 
being Miss Varelkamp’s servant. Not that I object to my ser- 
vice. And not that I should like to make up stories, myn- 
heer, however much I was paid for them, which is wicked, 
and hes, and of the devd, who is the father of lies. No, I 
never made up a story since I was a httle gu-1, and said that 
the baker was going to marry our neighbor’s daughter, and 
my dear mother spanked me, and I bless her for it in her 
grave. No, you won’t find me inventing anything. Mynheer 
van Donselaar, and I don’t know, I’m sure, how people can 
manage to think of things they haven’t seen. I’ve always 
ti-usted my eyes and ears, and, except what they’ve told me 
diuing the forty years of my earthly pilgriniage, I know noth- 
ing, nor I don’t want to, thank Heaven.” 

Mynheer van Donselaar had not been hstening. He turned 
away from his meaningless search for the newspaper and 
resumed his seat in the round armchair by his writing-table. 

“ Sit down, woman ! ” he said, speaking harshly in his agita- 
tion. “ Sit down — What’s-yer-name ! ” 

“I was chiistened Ehsabeth Overdenboogaardsloot, myn- 
heer,” said Betje with much dignity, folding her red hands 
under her woolen shawl, “ after my grandmother, who was a 
most God-fearing woman, and could read her Bible without 
spectacles at the age of eighty-nine.” 

Under ordinary circumstances, this information would have 
exceedingly interested M 3 aiheer van Donselaar, for he had 
recently begun collecting facts which related to cases of lon- 
gevity, and a curious oUa podrida such old gentlemen do get 
together when they once begin to cut scraps out of the news- 
papers and to interrogate work-people in the streets. 

But at the present moment he had other things to think of. 
He even forgot that he had ordered his head-gardener to come 


216 


AN OLD MAID'S LOVE. 


to him at nine o’clock precisely, and that it was already two 
minutes past. 

“And you mean to tell me,” he said impressively, “ that you 
accuse my son of unseemly famiharity with a servant-girl of 
this village?” 

There came a knock at the door as he was speaking. In 
answer to mynheer’s impatient, “ Come in,” the gardener made 
his appearance. 

“ What is it ? ” said mynheer. 

The man could hardly believe his ears. Never in aU Myn- 
heer van Donselaar’s methodical life had such a question 
seemed possible. 

“ You ordered me to come, mynheer,” he stammered. 

“Go to the devil,” cried the poor Paragon. “I mean, 
another time. Come again another time.” 

“ How late, mynheer ? ” asked the man, alarmed, yet cling- 
ing to the one idea which ruled that orderly household. For 
when we educate our servants to be nuisances, nuisances they 
will undoubtedly become. 

“To-morrow. We will talk of it to-morrow. Good-night.” 

“Amen, yes, and so be it. The truth will out,” said Betje, 
as soon as the gardener was gone. 

“And now, your proofs ? ” said mynheer, trying to assume 
a magisterial air. 

“Ask the girl, mynheer ; she won’t deny it. She’s only too 
proud to tell it to any one that will hear.” 

“And her name?” He took out a note-book and neatly 
found the place and held a pencil ready. As if, poor man, 
there was any chance of his forgetting that name when once 
he heard it. 

It woidd have been difficult for him, however, as it was for- 
tunately unnecessary, to note down all the information which 
Betje vouchsafed him. She was eloquent by nature, and she 
had cidtivated the gift. And she was moreover one of those 
persons whose rehgion mainly consists in glorying in the 
abasement of the human race in general and of their neigh- 
bors in particular. She was logical enough in her way. 
“ The world is very wicked : ” that was her philosophy. 
“ Therefore the people I meet with are wicked : ” these were 


THE MISTAKES AND MISHAPS OF KAREL DONSELAAR. 217 


her politics ; and “ I must pray for them improvement, while I 
do not beheve in it : ” that was her rehgion. The only thing 
that was not perfectly plain to her was this : how her cronies, 
who shared her conceptions of universal depravity, could be 
stupid enough to find occasional fault with herself. She would 
sit for hours of a Sunday evening, lamenting with her friends 
from the village the fallen condition of mankind and the 
frowardness of the human heart ; but she had not spoken for 
three years to a cousin who had ventured to teU her she was 
very self-willed. 

She now rejoiced in the painful duty which she told herself 
she was constrained to perform. Never would she have 
spoken another word on the subject, if Kai*el van Donselaar 
had kept his word. He had not kept it ; on the contrary, he 
had outrageously broken it, and neighbor’s Comehe was not 
unwilling it should be known that he had done so. In fact, 
it may well be questioned whether the triumphant stare with 
which she passed by Betje on Sunday morning, in a hat with 
curhng white feathers and a couple of silver bracelets, was 
not preponderantly conducive to the virtuous maiden’s visit at 
Steenevest. For Virtue can bear a good dem of personal dis- 
paragement and feel aU the happier for its affliction, but Vice, 
rampant in a new bonnet and shawl, has always put it in a 
bad temper. It was so in the days of the singer of that won- 
derful seventy -third Psalm, and it is so to-day. And so the 
voice of duty called to Betje, and she obeyed. 

“ That is enough, I am sure,” said Mynheer van Donselaar. 
“ It only remains to be proved whether it is true. You will 
now, if -you please, leave the matter in my hands. You say 
you came upon them together unexpectedly some days ago. 
What did you do on that occasion, may I ask ? ” 

She told him, leaving out the little incidents of the chastise- 
ment she had inflicted and the rix-doUar she had received. 

“Amnout Oostrum ! ” said Mynheer van Donselaar, inteiTupt- 
ing her story with a sneer. “A veiy fit person, indeed, to 
advise my son on the matter. It is he, probably, the young 
profligate, who has led the poor boy astray.” 

“That, mynheer, I take leave to question,” cried Betje, 
hugely proud of the plirase and the word. “And — no offence 


218 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


intended — ^but I don’t think the cases are similar, though I 
would be the last person in Wyk to defend the wickedness of 
Amout Oostrum.” 

She was viciously angry at her mistress’s nephew, most of 
aU, perhaps, on account of the sorrow he had brought to that 
mistress. She would find it impossible to forgive him; in 
fact, she never has done so, but she was not going to have 
him abused — in her hearing — by anybody but herself. 

“Very well,” said Mynheer van Donselaar. “What pay do 
you expect for having spoken here, or for keeping a quiet 
tongue in your head elsewhere ? We may as well settle that 
matter in this first and only interview.” 

Betje crossed her two hands on her chest. 

“ Pay ! ” she said. “ But, mynheer ! what other pay can I 
expect than the reward of a conscience at rest ? Not that my 
place is a profitable one in the sight of the world. Far from 
it. It’s not one of those kitchens of the wealthy where the 
butter-pot is left open all day. And I lost my best Sunday 
shawl on that evening when I tried to rescue your son. But 
I don’t mention ik And I labor for that which prophesieth 
not — ^profiteth not, I mean. No, I mean I do not labor for 
that which profiteth.” 

Mynheer van Donselaar looked in his purse for a gold-piece. 
He had not one — and yet he remembered having had it — 
there was only a note for twenty-five fiorins. That was too 
much. He wanted to get rid of the woman — the sooner the 
better — but he did not want to give her double the sum he 
had intended. So he got up, all dazed by the terrible revela- 
tion she had brought him, and stumbled across the room to 
unlock a strong box which stood on a side-table. Then he 
came back to her. “ Go,” he said ; and she, nodding her head 
in what she imagined to be a cui-tsey, retii’ed from the field of 
her labors, with a vague consciousness of having sown the 
seed. Only she found the golden harvest rather small. 

Mynheer van Donselaar, left to himself, sat in his armchair, 
a prey to two confiicting impressions; The aberration of his 
eldest son was a heavy blow to hiin, heavier than it would 
liave been to many a father ; first, because he liiinself had 
always been so highly respectable ; and secondly, because he 


THE MISTAKES AND MISHAPS OP KAREL DONSELAAR. 219 


had been fii*nily convinced, with an opinionated parent’s bhss- 
ful confidence, that his children obeyed him in everything, and 
w^ere growing up models of propriety like himself. But, look- 
ing at the delinquency entirely from the social, and not from 
the moral point of view, his chief sentiment was one of excess- 
ive irritation and injured vanity. “If Karel had been the 
jonker from the castle,” he said to himself, “ the thing would 
have been, perhaps, hardly agreeable, yet far from unusual, 
and, on the whole, rather smart j but it doesn’t answer in a 
man of business. No, no ; it doesn’t answer. And we must 
put a stop to it at once.” And at the same time there came 
creeping upon his anxiety about his son the uncertainty what 
could have become of that ten-fioiin piece which he had had 
in the morning. They mixed themselves up in his head, and 
he could not keep them apart. It need not be said that he 
was exact in money matters. Good heavens! He remem- 
bered as if it were yesterday that period of his life — ^it was in 
one of the first years while he was managing the business for 
his mother and sisters — when an error of 37^ cents had 
remained inexplicably fixed in his balance. How it had tor- 
tured him through the sleepless nights, and kept liim in a fer- 
ment of addition and subtraction through the restless days. 
He was sparing of his money in those days when he had 
httle, as in these when he had much ; but he would have wOl- 
ingly sacrificed a hundred florins, if thereby he could have 
bought the clue to his mistake. Such an accident had never 
occurred again in all the years of his book-keeping — he would 
hot have called it an accident, but a crime ; nor had he ever 
lost a piece of money except that fifty-Pfennig bit which had 
di-opped past the bag during the collection in the chm*ch at 
Ems, and roUed into the hot-air grating, a loss he could never 
remember without regret. He wanted to know what had 
become of that gold-piece, and he wanted to know what must 
be done with his light-minded young son and heir. 

He looked at the clock, and then at his watch ; he always 
looked at both together, unconsciously, except when they 
differed. “ Half-past nine,” he said. “ Koos will be coming 
in presently. I shall see, when Koos comes in.” And then 
he began counting up his money, and fuming and fussing 


220 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


about that “golden Willem,” tiU he had almost forgotten 
Karel’s amorous entanglement. 

Koos walked in before his father had come to a satisfactory 
conclusion, with his nightly report in his hand. 

“ Koos,” said mynheer, without looking up from his papers, 

“ where is Karel ? ” 

“In his own room, I presume, papa,” answered Koos as 
usual. 

“And what is he doing in liis room ? ” 

“ He reads a great deal, I believe, papa.” 

“And what have you been doing ? ” 

“ Playing the violin, papa.” 

“ Well, go up and teU Karel I want to speak to him.” 

Koos moved towards the door. 

“ Never mind about the coffee to-night,” said Mynheer van 
Donselaar. “Oh, you might just tell me one thing. Are 
prices up or down ? ” 

“ Down, papa,” said Koos, with his hand on the open door. 
“ To 7.30. And Boon and Bruin have failed.” 

“You don’t mean to say so!” cried mynheer, starting up. 
“ Boon and Bruin failed ! What next ! Tell me all about it. 
Sit down, Koos. TeU me everything you know. It is most 
remarkable. I should have bought they were good for 
another six months at least.” 

“ People were saying they would be good for thirty-five per 
cent., on ’Change,” said Koos, as he came back to the writing- 
table. 

“ Not they,” repUed his father. “ They wiU pay fifteen per 
cent., and be rich men again in a year or two. But give me 
the particulars first, and then you can go up and fetch 
Karel.” » 

A few minutes later Koos, having told what he knew or 
conjectured, sought out Dorothy, and explained to her his 
dUemma. “ The old gentleman is asking for Karel,” he said, 
“ and Karel is out in the woods and far away.” 

“ Then you must just go down and teU father that he is not 
in the house,” repUed Dorothy with kindling eyes. 

“ But I don’t like playing the sneak, DoUy,” objected Koos. 

“ This is not playing the sneak. You have no choice but 


THE JHSTAKES AND MISHAPS OF KAREL DONSELAAR. 221 


to go on lying to father or to tell the simple tmth. I myself 
have often been in doubt, of late, whether I should not open 
father’s eyes to Karel’s goings-on — unasked.” 

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” said Koos hghtly— as young 
men do say when they want to save their brothers from perdi- 
tion and feel their powerlessness to do so. 

“ You have no choice,” said Dorothy severely, “ and I am 
glad yon have none. Go down and answer papa’s question, 
and leave the rest to come right as it can. I don’t know, and 
I hardly wish to know, why Karel nms out every evening, 
but he can’t be after much good. I have tried to speak to 
him about it once or twice, but you can’t get much response 
out of Karel.” 

“ There is one thing I don’t quite understand,” began Koos 
hesitatingly — “ I wouldn’t say anything to hurt you for the 
world, you know, Dolly — only I can’t make out how yon 
judge Arnout Oostrum so differently. You — ^you seem to 
have such a fund of indulgence for Arnout Oostrum ; and, 
after all, Karel doesn’t seem to be half as bad as himP 

Dorothy felt herself considerably flustered by this du-ect 
inquiry. She had flattered herself that she was cruelly severe 
in her judgment of Arnout, and that she had brought to light 
this severity in her brief conversations on the subject with 
Koos. She was amazed to discover that Koos had received 
such a different impression, and she inwardly resolved to be 
far sterner with her own heart in future. 

“ I don’t know,” she said awkwardly. “ I was not aware I 
was too lenient about Oostrum. Still, I think I have this 
excuse, that the cases are probably very different. I beheve, 
if we could know the particulars, we should And that Arnout 
Oostrum was more sinned against than sinning.” 

Koos stood for a moment looking at her, desirous, un- 
decided, fluctuating between yes and no. Then he came 
back to her and put his arm around her neck, in the silence 
and the darkness. And she took his hand in hers and pressed 
it, and so, without a word and without a tear, she opened her 
heart to him and accepted the solace he was yearning to 
bestow. 

“ You must hear my new sonata,” he said presently, gently 


% 


223 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


disengaging himself. “I have been practising that difficult 
bit all the evening, as you advised me, and I tliink I have got 
it nearly perfect now. I wish it were not so hard to play 
weU.- Only the wicked things seem easy.” 

He tramped down-stairs unwillingly to his father, and 
opened the study door. 

“ Ten and two are twelve, and seven nineteen,” mimnured 
Mynheer van Donselaar. “ Well ? ” 

“ Karel is not in the house, papa.” 

“ Then why did you say he was, Koos ? ” 

Koos shrugged his shoulders. “I thought he probably 
woidd be,” he said. 

“ No, you did not. You knew that, of late, he has con- 
stantly been out at night. You lied to me, as you have 
repeatedly done, on the matter. I don’t think, Koos, that I 
have ever told a lie since I was a boy at school. But my chil- 
dren, it appears, think differently of these matters.” 

“ Dorothy doesn’t teU lies,” interposed Koos hotly. 

“ I did not say that she did. I was alluding to my sons. 
You do. It aU comes of your so-called artistic tastes. Every 
artist is a liar — as he must be, for art is lies — ^but every bar 
is by no means an artist. It takes a good deal to become a 
thoroughly artistic bar, Koos. I don’t think I ever met more 
than one in aU my life, and that was your uncle. You might 
perhaps emulate his example in time, if you think it is worth 
the trouble.” 

“ Don’t speak to me bke that, papa,” said Koos tremulously. 
“ I don’t be to you as a rule. Only I thought I ought to try 
and shield Karel.” 

“ I shaU speak to you as I choose, sir,” said his father pomp- 
ously. “ My cluldren are a source of gi’eat soitow to me, 
and I fear I have treated them with too great indulgence. 
But there wib be no more of this, so I warn you. Hencefor- 
ward I shab never trust you again.” 

“ But, papa ” 

“ Silence ! Leave the room. And your blood be upon 
your own head. It is nearly supper-time. Gro and see if Dor- 
othea is down-stairs.” And he returned to the search among 
his accounts for the missing money. 


THE mSTAKES AND MISHAPS OF KAREL DONSELAAR, 223 

He rose from it, unsatisfied, as soon as the clock stnick ten, 
and went in to have supper vdth his children. Karel did not 
turn up — an unusual circumstance, for, as a rule, he managed 
to be back in his place at the table. Only on one or two 
occasions had it been necessaiy for Koos to find an excuse for 
liim. 

After supper — and evening prayers — Mynheer van Donse- 
laar wished his children good-night, and went round to lock 
up the house as usual, Piet, the man-seiwant, being in attend- 
ance, also as usual, with a candle and the keys. And it was 
then that Mynheer van Donselaar extracted from Piet the 
confession that the servant had been bribed by his young mas- 
ter to sit up occasionally and let him in. He dismissed the 
man on the spot, with a six- weeks’ notice, instead of the cus- 
tomary three months (for so long do Dutch mistresses have to 
endure their departing domestics), and then he put out aU the 
hghts and prepared to sit up in the dark. 

He occupied himself with repeating his calculations, waiting 
alone in a little cloak-room off the hall, tiQ the clocks with 
which the house abounded had aU rung out through the dark- 
ness the hour of eleven. He noticed with much displeasure 
that a couple of minutes elapsed between the striking of this 
clock and that, and that only two struck exactly in unison. 
‘‘ The irregular,” he said to himself with a sigh, is the only 
rule. Happy the fool who can’t think or act straight.” 

A few moments after the last tone had died away, he heard 
stealthy steps coming up the avenue, and then a low whistle. 
He went td a little side door and opened it, standing weU back 
in its shadow. The night was very dark, yet he could distin- 
guish the figure of his eldest son, as the young man slipped 
into the passage. 

“ Here, Piet,” whispered Karel, holding out his hand with- 
out looking round, “ here is what I promised you.” 

His father quietly took the proffered coin, and threw-to the 
door, whilst Karel hurried up-stairs. Then Mynheer van Don- 
selaar went back to his study, lighted a candle, and looked 
down on the piece of money his son had just given him. 

He recognized it at once. It had had a little green spot on 
it which he had casually noticed, and there the little green 


224 


AN OLD ]\IAID'S LOVE. 


spot was still. A sound broke from him which was very like 
a groan of pain, and then he snuffed out the candle carefully, 
and crept up to his room in the dark. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

“YOU BORE US, PAPA.” 

Breakfast as usual. The uncomfortable old Dutch break- 
fast. Bread and cheese for the men. Bread and honey-cake 
for the women. An egg for the invalid. Family prayers ffrst 
at eight o’clock. Mynheer van Donselaar reading, with a steady 
voice, the story of the Prodigal Son, and a lengthy disquisition 
on it out of a Dutch, “ Day by Day ; ” then the meal, solemn 
and silent — ^but that was nothing new at Steenevest — ^broken 
at times by a remark from Karel, which the others answered 
in monosyllables. A general feehng of thunder in the air, 

“ Karel,” began Mynheer van Donselaar, as his son pushed 
away his cup and rose from the table, “ I have to retm-n a sum 
of money to you, which you eri’oneously bestowed upon me 
yesterday evening. Or was it an act of restitution, and did 
you remember that the money was rightfully mine?” He 
flung the gold-piece on the table as he spoke. 

Karel allowed himseff, for a moment, to be utterly pertm*bed. 
Then he recovered his presence of mind, and said as calmly as 
he could — 

“ Yes, papa, it is true that I came home late last night. I 
had been to young Langhoudt and stayed to supper. I had 
no idea you would sit up, of course. And I had promised Piet 
a tip.” 

“ TeU me first,” said Mynheer van Donselaar, “ how you ex- 
tracted yonder piece of money from my purse. I suppose you 
did it while I was asleep on the sofa after dinner, j^ter that, 
you can teU me what your intentions are with regard to that 
girl, Comelie.” 

“ I see” said Karel, thrusting both his hands deep down in 
his pockets, and making himself as tall as he could. “ It’s all 


YOU BORE US, PAPA.’ 


225 


up. Of com*se I thought it would be some day. Very weU, 
papa, now you know it, what next ? Life can’t easily be more 
hateful anywhere else than in this house, and any change would 
be an improvement, I should say.” 

“ You win have the change, Karel,” said Mynheer van Don- 
selaar quietly. 

“ I am glad of it, papa. — What do you mean, you two,” he 
continued, tui’ning Wcely on his brother and sister, “ by stand- 
ing grinning there ? Get out, can’t you, and leave papa and 
me to settle tliis little business between us f ” 

Dorothy would have spoken, but her father also waved her 
away. The pair left the dining-room with heavy hearts. 

“ Karel,” said Mynheer van Donselaar, as the door closed 
upon them, “ you are my eldest son. I have done everything 
for you — ^both for your education and your entertainment — 
that an enlightened parental affection can effect. You have 
not been spoilt, I admit it, but, far better, you have been kindly 
nurtured. You have rewarded aU my fostering care by disso- 
lute conduct, and — ^far worse — ^by theft. You, a merchant, and 
a merchant’s son, have stooped to theft. I tremble to think 
what future perhaps awaits you ; but the crimes which you 
may possibly commit you shall not commit in this country. 
You will leave this house with me within sis hom*s, and you 
will not return to it. We shall procm’e an outfit together in 
Amsterdam, and you will sail for Java by the next boat that 
goes out.” 

“And what am I to do in Java?” asked Karel. 

“ I will give you letters to my correspondents out there. 
You will be put to work on a coffee-plantation in the interior. 
And your future will depend upon yourself.” 

“Is that aU?” asked Karel pohtely. 

“ Yes, that is aU, for the present. Oh, Karel, Karel, you are 
worse than the young man we read about this morning. For, 
at least, his father had given him the money he wasted on 
riotous living. Oh, my boy, my boy, if you could but see the 
en-or of your ways, how very quickly you would depart from 
them ! ” 

“ My father never gave me any money to waste,” said Karel 
quickly. “And now, papa, hsten to me for a moment. You 
16 


22G 


AN OLD MAID'S LO\^. 


have favored me with yoim view ; may I trouble you with mine ! 
Ever since I can remember, I have been bored to death in this 
house with a thousand little worries and fusses that are of no 
good to any one, not even to you. I don’t say that you have 
treated me cmelly, though you have never shown me any kind- 
ness worth mentioning ; I suppose you are fond of me — and 
of the others — after yom* manner, but it is a manner, in any 
case, wliich we children don’t understand. We are thorouglily 
uncomfortable, and, in one word, you bore us. A weight is 
taken off our heai-ts whenever you leave the room. Under 
these circumstances, I have looked for amusement elsewhere. 
I have gone a httle wild, undoubtedly ; but the blame — if there 
be much blame — ^is not mine. During all these years it has 
been the one enjoyment I have had. It was not altogether an 
innocent one. But will you oblige me by remembering, papa, 
that I told you it was the only enjoyment I had ever had. 
And now I am ready to go to Java tdl you want me back 
again.” 

“ That will not be soon,” said Mynheer van Donselaar, livid 
with wi-ath. 

“You know, papa, that I never lay wagers; but I should 
almost feel inclined to offer you one that you will want me back 
for the business some day. For, whatever my faidts have 
been, you must admit that I was good for the business. Was 
I not good for the business, papa ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Mynheer van Donselaar, “ but a tliief.” And he 
walked out of the room. 

“A thief ! ” said Karel to himself. “ C’est trop fort. He is 
reaUy insupportable, and I sluiU be glad to get away fi’om him. 
He owes me a good deal more than those beggarly ten fforins 
I appropriated yesterday. Here have I been making money 
for liim for the last three years without even getting a decent 
salary. The money, and much more of it, is mine by right. 
We shall see how he manages on Koos’s fiddling. I shan’t 
much mind getting a sight of the world, and they say life is 
joUy enough on some of those big coffee-plantations.” 

Nobody considered it worth his while to worry about Cor- 
nelie. 


YOU BORE US, PAPA.’ 


227 


“ Papa,” said Dorothy at her fathers study door, papa, you 
must let me in ! I want to speak to you,” 

No answer. 

“ Let me in, papa ! I have something of importance to say.” 

Still no answer. 

It was then that Dorothy wedt round by the open French 
window and walked into the room. 

Never had such boldness been heard of in the annals of 
Steenevest. The study door, even unlocked, was an almost 
sacred barrier j but locked, it became a thing of majesty, 
hardly to be passed by in the hall without a feeling of awe. 

Mynheer van Donselaarwas sitting in his armchair, with his 
head in his hands. 

“ Papa,” said Dorothy, “ I must speak to you. And you 
must listen to me, i£ you please.” 

“ Dorothea,” said her father in broken tones, “ go away.” 

“ No, papa, I cannot go away,” answered the daughter boldly. 
“ I am the only woman in the family, and as such I have a 
right to speak. Mine is the woman’s side of the business. Is 
it true, papa, that Karel is going to India ? ” 

'^Yes, Dorothea.” 

“Amd what is to become of the — the girl ? Of course, I un- 
derstand that there is a girl m the matter. Besides, Koos ad- 
mitted as much. What is to become of the girl, papa ? ” 

“ That sm’ely, Dorothea, is no business of yours.” 

“ But it is my business, and, unless you wiU speak to me 
about it, I must find out for myself. I am resolved, papa, to 
do what I can for the girl.” 

“ I shall do what is right,” said Mynheer van Donselaar, re- 
moving his face from his hands and resuming his ordinaiy 
pompous manner. “ I shall have the giiTs circumstances care- 
fully inquired into, and I shall see that she is pecmiiaiily com- 
pensated and enabled to marry some worthy person in her 
own station of life. Be sure that I shall do aU that is just, 
and more than is just, for the creature to whom you unwisely 
allude.” 

“ Papa,” said Dorothy, “ I cannot agree with you, and that’s 
why I wanted to speak to you about the matter. As Miss 
Varelkamp says in that — that other case, the gill is not fit to 


228 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


marry another man, papa. For, yon see, she is Karel’s 
wife.” 

“ What folly is this ? ” said Mynheer van Donselaar angi’Uy. 

I have trouble enough at this moment, I should tliink, Doro- 
thy, without your coming to me with such mischievous foUy. 
In a few hours I'take Karel away to Amsterdam.” 

“You are resolved?” cried Dorothy, in a tremor of excite- 
ment; “you refuse to give hi m a chance of redeeming the 
past ? You separate him from the woman, and thereby ren- 
der his repentance impossible ? Is it so, papa ? ” 

“ If you choose to put it like that — ^yes.” 

“ It is a crime, papa. I have warned you ; I can do no more.” 

She was going, but he called her back. In the abandon- 
ment of his sons, his heart clung to his only daughter with an 
unaccustomed tenderness. 

“ Dorothea,” he said, “ do you reaUy mean that you think it 
would contribute to any one’s happiness, if this transient ca- 
price were to be welded by us into a lasting chain ? Do you 
think it would be for the wretched girl’s benefit any more than 
for Karel’s ? ” 

“ I don’t know about that, papa,” said Dorothy ; “ but I know 
it would be right. And I know also, that, if once society 
recognized it to be inevitable, there would be an end of all that 
seducing of women which is the curse of the race.” 

“These are Miss Varelkamp’s notions,” said Mynheer van 
Donselaar pettishly — “ an old maid’s notions, and utterly im- 
practicable. I ten you, Dorothea, that there could be no 
gi-eater misery imaginable for this servant girl than to make 
her Mevrouw van Donselaar. And the boy would have the 
good sense to reject such a plan.” 

“ The greater coward he ! ” cried Dorothy with flashing eyes. 
“ What, then, did he think of, or intend, when he stole upon her 
innocence ? ” The angry tears welled forward, but she forced 
them back. 

“ Hush ! hush ! ” said mynheer. “ These are no subjects for 
you, daughter. But,” he added, as a sudden thought struck 
him, “if you speak like that, then, Dorothy, your quondam 
lover would have to many Madame de Mongelas ? ” 

“ Papa ! ” stammered Dorothy. “ Don’t speak of it. Yes.” 


YOU BORE US, PAPA.' 


229 


Do you mean that ? Does she mean that ? With all the 
misfortunes it would entail? You are a pair of fools, then, 
child. Do you mean that you are ready to support yoiu’ prin- 
ciple into its most extravagant consequences ; that, if I allow 
Karel to offer his hand to Mejuffrouw Comeha, you will 
promise me never again to think of becoming the wife of Ar- 
nout Oostrum ? ” 

“ Is it a bargain you are offering me, papa ? ” 

“ Yes,” he said, somewhat rashly perhaps, but the promise 
was worth obtaining, and he knew that Karel would scoff at 
the proposal. 

She did not so firmly accept this latter contingency, and, for 
the moment, the struggle thus to gain her point was violent 
within her. Then her simple integrity gained the day. 

“ Papa,” she said, “ I don’t want to deceive you. I must teU 
you that I already consider myself bound in the sight of God 
never to become the wife of Arnout Oostrum as long as he 
can marry Madame de Mongelas.” 

“And yet you love him ? ” 

“Yes, papa, I love him stiU.” 

“ Dorothea,” said Mynheer van Donselaar, “ I respect your 
motives, though I cannot understand them ; but I assure you 
that your suggestions for Karel’s punishment — and such they 
practically become — exceed anything that simple cruelty could 
devise. It is unreasonable, and we will say no word about the 
matter. I am going to leave for Amsterdam, as I told you, in 
a few hours. I shall stay with Karel till he embarks. And I 
shall take the same opportunity of looking for a house. We 
are going to leave Steenevest, Dorothy. We are going back to 
Amsterdam.” 

“ Going to leave Steenevest ? Oh, papa ! ” 

“Yes, child ; at least, for a time. I am not sure yet whether 
I shall sell the house. But I must return to the office, Dorothy. 
I cannot leave Koos to manage affairs alone. He is too young j 
and he fiddles too well. He has not a business-head.” 


230 


AN OLD JIAID’S L0\T:. 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

GRACE POUR MOI. 

“You have been out with the American again,” said Madame 
de Mongelas. “ He undoubtedly has excellent cigars, but you 
smoke too many of them, Ai'nout. You retain the smeU. I am 
the last woman in the world to object to smoking ; you know 
I like an occasional cigarette myseK ; but one must not notice 
the smeU. There is nothing so odious and so un-‘comme-il- 
faut.’ ” 

“ If I am odious,” said Arnout, “ I will go down-stairs again.” 

“ No, you wiU not do so detestable a thing, but you will stay 
up-stairs with me and make yourself agreeable. Now my foot 
is well again, or nearly well, I am dying of ennui. It is too 
hot to go out, and I like the heat, only I must have ‘ B. and 
S.’s,' as Mr. Doyer says, and conversation. LuciUe reads to 
me, but she mispronounces aU her words as soon as she sees 
them on paper. I have hardly seen you all day, Arnout. You 
are not ‘ gentU.’ ” 

“You are late in discovering the fact,” said Arnout. 

“Heaven, let us have no bickerings, no recriminations! 
There is nothing I abhor so much. You are a Prince Charm- 
ing when you choose, mon cher, but you do not always choose. 
Or let me say, if you like, that the fault is mine. A woman’s 
caprices! Des vapeurs! Shall I play to you? Very well, 
then you must open the piano. Do you know, Arnout, you 
have very greatly improved in music since you have had the 
advantage of my tuition. Your taste was bad — do not be 
angry with me for saying so — and you did not know the 
difference between the two Bachs.” 

“ The two Bachs ? ” queried Arnout. 

“Offenbach and Sebastian. There is a difference. I be- 
lieve you would recognize it by this time.” 

“ Tormentor ! ” said Arnout, laughing. “ There are a gi’eat 


GRACE POUR MOI. 


231 


many things you have taught me, and I am quite willing to 
admire yoiu* taste ; but you needn’t tell me that you appreciate 
Bach. He is not in yom* line. Play me that Spanish dance 
with the staccato in the middle — you know, the castanets — if 
you don’t feel inclined to sing.” 

“ I am not flattered, as you perhaps think I might be, by 
your admiration of my taste,” she said, as she arranged her 
music and drew off her bracelets. “ It is only vanity displaced. 
You are not at aU a coxcomb. Mynheer Oostrum ; you are only 
unconsciously vain. It is the worst form of the disease — the 
chronic one ; we women usually have both kinds at once.” 

She struck a few chords, and then glided into a Hungarian 
rhapsody. She played on, dropping from one tune into 
another, through a succession of dances, avoiding, with a way- 
wardness which frequently came upon her, especially of late, 
the particular one for which Amout had asked. She played 
brilliantly, sjiowily, with what we caU “ accuracy and flnish,” as 
they play who can give nothing in music except what they have 
been taught, but who can give that to the very last iota, and who 
have been taught weU. She enjoyed listening to her own fault- 
less runs and roulades, and she skipped to and fro over the 
piano in a triumph of ease and gi-ace. Was she a musician J 
WeU, she never sat down to the piano without wondering 
whether her auditors Uked — the view. 

She stopped at last, to take rest. Amout had gone to the 
open window — a great window thrown back from the balcony, 
Bn-ough which the soft warm air stole in, lightened by the light 
of ten thousand stars. Round the huge scarlet shad(^)f the 
lamp numberless insects were fluttering and buzzing, and 
Jacko, a silken grey bundle on the Turkish tablecloth, was tiy- 
ing in vain to catch some of them, skipping to and fro over 
the books and between the flower-glasses, to the imminent 
danger of aU things breakable, and of the gigantic crystal 
lamp in particular. Amout carried him off to the balcony, 
protesting and spluttering, and there strove to make him dance 
to the music. Jacko could dance, but he now absolutely re- 
fused to do it. Ever since he had been rescued from the mis- 
eiy of fairs, he had resolutely dropped the accomplishment 
which reminded him of his former squalor, just as the gentle- 


232 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


men who are called late in life to country squiredom sink the 
shop and forget the price of tea. 

“ Why didn’t you play my Spanish dance ? ” asked Amout. 
“The one I asked you for?” 

She threw a glance at him full of mischievous mutiny, and 
for only answer struck another half-dozen chords on the piano, 
and then broke into song — into song which he knew only too 
well — 

“ L’amour est enfant de Boheme.” 

“ Not that,” he said passionately, leaving the monkey and 
coming forward. “Not that, Dorine. Sing spmething else. 
I don’t like it.” 

“ Wliy not ? ” she asked in surprise — in genuine surprise — 
breaking off abruptly. 

“ I don’t know,” he said fiercely. “ I don’t like it. I am 
afraid of it. Sing sometliing else.” 

“ No,” she said with something like a pout, “ I -won’t. WTiy 
should I ? You merely say it to vex me. And you know it is 
a favorite of mine. I like that energy of the last line — 

Et si je t’aiine, prends garde toi I ’ ” 

^ She struck some of the notes as she ceased speaking. But 
he caught her by the arm. 

“I win not stay to hear you sing it,” he said hoarsely. 
“ There is the very de-vdl in you sometimes, Dorine,” 

“ Mon cher, you are more than ridiculous ; you are insult- 
ing. I was singing for your own pleasure, not for mine, and 
I wiU i^lect something else if you prefer it. Let go my hand. 
Wliat shall it be ? Ah, I know.” 

And she sang the great aria from “ Robert.” He slirank 
back from the piano under the shade of the heavy window cm*- 
tain, looped up in an Italian drapery, and stood listening and 
looking at her. She went through the fii'st verse steadily, her 
splendid voice ringing out the wild appeal into the breathless 
night, faultlessly devoid of any shriek in its agonized cry. And 
then she came to the second. She sang that also tdl the des- 
perate words repeated themselves. Then her voice faltered, 
she stopped, she started up from the piano, and came towards 
Aimout. She swept him -with her on to the balcony out into 


MISS DONSET.AAR HAS NO TROUBLES. 233 

the night. And they stood there for a moment, breathless, 
motionless, in the tranquil, balmy glory of the starlit summer 
night. 

“ Grace,” she said very softly, “ grace pour toi-m^me. Et 
grace pour moi.” 

And then they fell into each other’s arms with kisses and 
teai’s. 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 

MISS DONSELAAR HAS NO TROUBLES. 

“ You, then, must help me ; you, who have done the wrong, 
should at least atford me what remedy you can. For you, far 
more than she whom I once loved to caU ‘ Tante Suze,’ have 
driven me forth from home, from the nest under the eaves. 
I don’t regret going — don’t think I regret it — only let me go 
in peace. They have told me that you loved me, and that I 
deserted you. I know it is not true, for I know that you drove 
me away. But I want you to tell me it is not true ; I want to 
see it in black and white, in your handwriting, that I am in- 
different to you ; that you are glad I am gone. I am happy 
here : do not think I am not happy j but leave me my happi- 
ness — Cleave me to retain your memory without sorrow and 
without regret, — above aU, without regret. TeU me then, for 
pity’s sake, that you too are happy, the happier because I no 
longer sign myself Your 

“Arnout Oostrum.” 

Dorothy laid down the letter upon the rustic table in front 
of her, in the little log-hut at Steenevest. 

The postman had just brought it. Even now he was com- 
ing back along the avenue from the house where he had been 
to fetch the letters for the mad. He touched his cap again to 
the young lady in passing. ‘ “ Dag, Jan,” she said. 

And then she took the letter up and read it over once more. 
It took long to read, this second time, and yet it w'as very short. 
The fii’st time she had flashed through it, photographing the 


234 


AN OLD MAID'S tOVE. 


whole contents upon her mind in one instant. Now it seemed 
to her as if she could not go slowly enough to grasp the full 
meaning of every word. She lingered over the short, sharp 
sentences, and considered them involved. She wished that, if 
he must write to her, he would express himself more clearly. 
But he had no business to write to her. How dare he do it ? 
She told herself that she was very angry with him for daring. 
And then she smiled, for she knew her ovti heart better than 
most girls of her age, and she did not beheve in her wrath. 

But presently there came upon her, as she sat gazing at the 
letter, the recollection of — ^that woman — ^the woman who was 
with him, the woman who had mined him. It was from that 
woman’s side, perhaps with her knowledge, that he wi*ote. 
Dorothy’s color rose, and she felt her anger rising with it. No, 
hardly with her knowledge, yet in her presence, and while still 
contaminated by her touch. Perhaps the paper was hers. It 
was of foreign make, thick and unglazed, neither the shape nor 
the texture of the dirty- wliite sheets, with “ Bath ” in the cor- 
ner, which Aimout was accustomed to use at home. She felt a 
feminine curiosity to know where he had got such beautiful 
paper. Could it really be out of Madame de Mongelas’s writ- 
ing-case ? She lifted it to her scornfid httle nose. It was per- 
fumed, probably the favorite perfume of that creature. She 
flung it away from her. Her eyes flashed. No, indeed ! How 
could he dare to write to her, and on this paper! “I am 
happy : do not think I am unhappy.” What right had he to 
speak to her thus ? Of such happiness as was his. He was in- 
sulting ; he was shameless. She was angry in good truth. 

Most certainly she was angry. Nevertheless, she got up and 
fetched the letter back, and spread it out once more upon the 
table. She was very, very soiry for Amout. 

Not sorry only. She had never denied, neither to herself, 
nor to her father, nor to Miss Varelkamp, that she loved the 
man who had once asked her to be his wife. It was no use 
denying it. She would have hked to be his wife. Ever since 
that evening when her father’s unre'asonable refusal had sup- 
plied her with the answer she was in search of, it had been 
useless to deny the fact. She did not wish to. 

But she had found a certain satisfaction in the thought that 


mss DONSELAAR HAS NO TROUBLES. 


235 


Arnout was contented with his choice. He had told te Bakel 
that he did not wish to retmn to Wyk. Miss Varelkamp’s 
letter to Madame de Mongelas had remained unanswered. And 
Arnout himself had given no token any of his former friends 
that he desired for a change in his condition. There was much, 
undoubtedly, that Dorothy could not but most deeply regret. 
The woman whom Arnout had chosen to share his life was not 
a fit companion for him. She was a Roman Cathohc, and not 
even an earnest one. She was much older than he ; she be- 
longed to an altogether different class and nation. It must be 
doubted whether she would make him happy. But he loved 
her. To simple-minded Dorothy all these obstacles were the 
greater proofs of his all-conquering affection. He loved her — 
madly, with a passion which she could not understand, but 
wliich, in men' judging by the not very numerous novels she 
had read, was by no means uncommon. Then there were the 
poets — and of these she had read a good many — “ Hero and 
Leander ; ” “ Troilus and Cressida 5 ” ‘‘ Romeo and Juliet,” and 
aU the rest. Love, in men, always rejoiced in the strangest 
combinations and the most awful impediments. They climbed 
up to it, by preference, in the very jaws of death, and in the 
teeth of common sense. No wonder that Arnout should love 
unfitly. Unfitness was of the essence of love. 

But she was content to think he should be happy in his 
choice. After aU, no man could alter it. And the one thing 
that remained to be done now. Miss Suzanna was striving to 
do it — to bind him definitely to the woman whom he had pre- 
ferred before all others, that he might caU her his. 

Said Dorothy to herself : “ I have been selfish. And foolish. 
My father was wiser than I. It was out of courtesy — out of 
chivalrous impulse, let me rather caU it — that Amout Oostrum 
offered his hand to me when he did. He would never have 
done it had he not felt called upon to come to my rescue. And 
it was from the same impulse that he repeated his offer after 
my father’s refusal! He can never have loved me. For, had 
he loved me, he could not have loved Madame de Mongelas.” 

And she was wounded at the thought of this eliivalry, be- 
stowed not for her sake, but for his own. I think, had she 
been left to herseK, her pride would soon have conquered all 


236 


AN OLD MAID’S liOVE. 


weak hankering after runaway Aniout. And, besides, an 
honest Dutch maiden does not go on loving the man who shows 
that he will not have her. 

Bnt this letter distnrbec^her in the repose into which she had 
fallen. It wanted not her wai*m yonng heart to read between 
the lines. When her ontbiu’st of indignation against the 
Frenchwoman had died away — no, she conld make no allow- 
ances for Madame de Mongelas — her interest once more cen- 
tred on this man whom she loved, and whoso thoughts, from 
the strange vortex of passion into which he had deliberately 
cast himself, now turned, of aU women, to her. Let him reit- 
erate that he was happy. It was not true. There was some- 
thing in the tone of the letter whicli told her it was not true. 
He was unhappy, restlessly unhappy, and ho wi’ote it to her. 

Did he love her stiU? Tush! He had ne’^er loved her. 
And he expressly told her it was not this which caused him un- 
happiness. She sat silent, with meditative eyes, gazing out 
across the strip of lawn and the flower-beds, and the meadows 
stretching far and wide, in which the cows were browsing. 
One of them, an old grey one, attracted her attention for a 
moment! The animal seemed dissatisfled with its food. 

He was unhappy — oh, disgraceful thought! — ^because he 
feared that she was pining for him ; because he feared that he 
had acted -wi’ongly towards her, had acted — unkindly. Doro- 
thy felt herself growing hot and cold. Unkindly ! Not with 
proper consideration. The old chivalry again ! It was his 
duty to be courteous to this good and affectionate little girl. 
Perhaps he ought to have married her from chivalry, and coui’t- 
es}-^, and kindness. “ They teU me I have deserted you.” Per- 
haps they told him she had said so. And perhaps they added 
that she had said that she wanted him back ! She got up has- 
tily and fairly ran away from her own thoughts. 

She must go and seek comfort of Miss Varelkamp. They 
were much together, nowadays, these two women, and eacli 
comforted the other without words. Dorothy put on a gar- 
den-hat and ran down the quiet lane. It was coming on to 
rain, but she did not notice that. 

She met Mejuffrouw Varelkamp at a turn of the road. Su- 
zanna had been visiting some of her poor. She had an empty 


mss DONSELAAR HAS NO TROUBLES. 


237 


basket with her and a bundle of tracts. There had been no al- 
teration in her daily occupations, for she had seen no reason to 
make it. Of course she knew that it was not customary — even 
outside the confines of religion — for one human creature to en-. 
deavor to shorten the days of another ; but she had never pre- 
tended that rehgion m^e you good. On the contrary, she 
had always fiercely asserted that it was the unrighteousness of 
rationalism to think so. And, even admitting that murder was 
%vicked, she did not feel at all convinced that she had acted so 
very wrongly in trying to remove the Frenchwoman from her 
nephew’s path. How much of her own theory she beheved, 
and how much she fancied she believed, it would be hard to de- 
termine. But she convinced herself with the more eagerness, 
the louder her doubts became. And with that inconstancy 
wliich we all show when matters come to a crisis, she denied 
the most salient point in her character, and was unjust to the 
Frenchwoman. And her only regret — or, at least, so she told 
herself — the passionate reproach which never left her day or 
night, was this, that she had probably been chiefly instru- 
mental by her unwisdom in preparing Amout’s ruin, and that 
she had, through her final rashness, brought about a catastrophe 
w'hich might otherwise have been avoided. It might have been 
— but for her ! Whatever her crime may have deserved, in 
that unresting thought lay punishment enough. 

Was she really never sorry for her deed? Wlio shall say? 
She would have told you. No. But, then, she was the very 
worst judge of the matter. 

And she went and visited her poor, and distributed her 
tracts, and she said — to Dorothy, once — that her conscience 
was at rest, but that her heart was very sad because of the in- 
jury she had done to the one creature on earth whom she loved 
with all-absorbing love. She must expiate that injury to him 
as best she could. And then she could lay down her head and 
die. 

Probably she really desired to die, if this were once effected, 
for she would have nothing left to live for. But her health 
remained very good, and there was no reasonable prospect of 
her early removal. 

In the meantime she went on digging her grave by aU the 


238 


AN OLD MAID'S LOVE. 


means in lier power ; that is to say, she left no stone nntm-ned 
to effectuate — what she di-eaded most of all things, as the end 
of every chance of happiness to her — a legal union between 
Arnout and Madame de Mongelas. 

She did what she could. She wi'ote to Madame de Mongelas, 
but her letter remained unanswered. She could not write to 
Arnout ; there was a gulf between them wliich she dared not 
bridge over. And, woman that she was, she did not feel the 
same compmiction towards Madame de Mongelas. 

By Jakob te BakePs help she instituted inquiries in Paris 
with regard to the viscountess’s antecedents. An Amsterdam 
agent for such confidential investigations was cairying them 
on ; they were in progress at this moment, and she daily ex- 
pected to be made acquainted with the results. 

And in the meantime she lived her daily life, going the in- 
significant round of her duties. Only she was sterner, harder, 
more lonely, and more uncompromising than ever. Pleasures 
she had never had — except denying herself for Arnout’s sake 
— and to this solitary distraction she now devoted herself with 
greater energy than ever. The strict economy of the little 
hoilse tightened into positive want. Suzanna had never had 
any extra pence, and she now laid aside many a much-needed 
penny towards meeting the expenses already incurred and 
those which she saw looming in the distance. She cut down 
Betje ruthlessly, allowing her less meat and less butter every 
week ; and Betje, though she grew visibly — not tliinner, that 
was impossible, nor paler exactly ; let us rather say less red — 
only grumbled because the Juffrouw had given up butter alto- 
gether as well as the sugar in her tea. 

“I win walk home with you. Miss Varelkamp, if you will 
allow me,” said Dorothy ; “ there are some things I should like 
to talk to you about.” 

“ What is it ? ” said Suzanna quickly in a low voice. Her 
thoughts leaped at once to the subject which never deserted 
her. 

Nothing of much importance,” answered Dorothy, alai-med 
by the earnestness of her manner. “We have plenty of time 
to talk about vaidous matters. May I walk home with you ? 
Have you been to see Baas Vroom ? ” 


MISS DONSELAAIi HAS NO TROUBLES. 


239 


“ said Suzanna, “ do not try to deceive me. You have 
news of — of him. Has he written ? What is it ? Has he 
come back?” 

“ No, no, dear Tante Suze ! ” cried Dorothy, touched to the 
heart by the yearning look in the sharp old face. “ Let us 
walk on, and I will teU you.” 

“ I must know — now,” said Suzanna, stopping in the middle 
of the road. She clutched her grey woolen dress with the 
hand that held the empty basket, and drew her skirts about 
her. Her hands looked very bony in tlieii* coarse gi*ey cotton 
gloves j her eyes blinked once or twice, and her chin trembled. 

It was getting dark, for the clouds were sinking lower, and 
great heavy drops of rain were beginning to fall. 

He has written,” said Suzanna. “And you are going to 
show me the letter.” 

Silently Dorothy di-ew it out of her pocket and held it 
towards the old maid. 

Mejulfrouw Varelkamp took it, and stood reading it. The 
long road was deserted but for these two desolate figm-es, ar- 
rested half-way. Over the wide fields on both sides black 
tracts of clouds were driving, and fierce gusts of wind dashed 
every now and then through the trees along the border. The 
rain came down faster — with a rush. 

It was not till Miss Varelkamp had done reading the letter 
that she stooped to di-aw up her old skirt, revealing the grey 
knitted petticoat underneath. 

She pinned tliis up with great neatness and precision, and 
she fastened her spotless handkerchief over her bonnet, and 
then, when her arrangements were concluded, she said quietly — 

“ Perhaps it will be only a shower. Let us tiy and shelter 
in Baas Vroom’s cottage at the end of the road. I was com- 
ing away from there.” 

They walked rapidly in that direction. Neither spoke. But 
at last Dorothy could bear it no longer. “ Well!” she asked. 

Miss Varelkamp tinned her face towards her young compan- 
ion. “ Shall I teU you ? ”• she said in a hoarse voice. “ Ought 
I to teU you ? Poor thing ! ” 

“Wliat?” asked Dorothy tremulously. “ You frighten me, 
Tante Suze ! Wliat is it f ” 


240 


AN OLD SIAID’S LOVE. 


“ He loves you still.” 

They did not exchange another word until they reached the 
cottage. Dorothy’s color came and went. But, as they stood, 
all dripping and bedraggled, shaking off the rain before they 
claimed admittance, she said with sudden vehemence, “ He does 
not love me. He pities me, and he wants to be very good and 
gentle. And I must give him the answer he requires.” 

Suzanna only shook her head with mournful emphasis, and 
they went into the cottage together. 

“ I am not going to deny,” said old Baas Vroom, sitting up 
among the pihows in his armchair, “ that the rain may be an 
aiTangement of the Almighty’s, but then the rheumatiz isn’t. 
Or, it the rheumatiz is, as you’ve been telling me aU the morn- 
ing, juffrouw, then the rain can’t be ; I feel certain. For the 
Almighty can’t have created both the rain and the rheuma- 
tiz ; the two of them together are more than mortal flesh can 
bear.” 

“ Hush, hush, father ! ” said his daughter, going up to him. 
“ Here is the Juffrouw van Donselaar.” 

Everybody in the village hked Dorothy’s sweet face. 

I see her,” growled the father, somewhat modifying his 
querulous tone. “She don’t know what troubles are, she 
doesn’t. They talk about its raining blessings. But it only 
does that on some people’s fields.” 

“At any rate, I have had more than my share to-day. Baas 
Vroom,” said Dorothy’s kind voice. “ I got drenched, as you 
see. Drenched. And I have come to appeal to your hospital- 
ity. You mustn’t be rude to a guest.” 

The old crosspatch scowled, hugely delighted. But he went 
on with his grumbling. “ Juffi*ouw Varelkamp says I must 
be contented,” he said. “And so I am. But I don’t see why 
I should sit all day inventing imaginary blessings. I don’t be- 
lieve in things I don’t see.” 

“ What do you call blessings ? ” asked Dorothy. “ Your nice 
cottage here, and your daughter to look after you and nurse 
you — what do you call these ? ” 

The old man shook his head. “ Them’s not blessings,” he 
said. 


MISS DONSELAAR HAS NO TROUBLES. 


241 


“Then what are, you ungi*ateful creature?” queried Miss 
Varelkamp sharply. 

“Baccy,” answered the Baas promptly, “and broth from 
the great house, and new-laid eggs, and smoked beef, and — 
and 

“And gin,” snapped Juflfrouw Varelkamp. 

“And gin,” acquiesced the old gentleman readily. “ Bless- 
ings is aU the things as poor people doesn’t have.” 

“And when poor people have them, they leave off being bless- 
ings?” suggested Dorothy, with a wicked merriment in her 
eyes. 

“ Yes,” said the old invalid. He was not going to gainsay 
so palpable a truth. And he fell into a fit of coughing. 

His daughter came round to Dorothy and drew her aside, 
trj^ing to remove the wet from her garments as best she could. 
Until now she had been similarly employed with the older lady. 

“ He is very faint, juffrouw,” she said in a low voice, with 
a movement of her thumb in the direction of her parent. She 
had got into his way of misquoting Bible texts. “ He is very 
faint, juffrouw, but he is dreadful pursuing. Dear, dear ! the 
fainter he gets the more pursuing he becomes to me, I assure 
you. I’m worrited half out of my life.” 

She did not say “ worrited,” but she gave its Dutch equiva- 
lent. She said : Gekoeieneerd. 

“ I’m out of spirits,” remarked the old man meanwhilo sig- 
nificantly to Miss Varelkamp, and he heaved a deep sigh. “ I’m 
out of spirits, juffrouw, and I’ve been so ever since Saturday. 
It’s very hard on a poor old feUow that used to have plenty 
once, and of the right kind too.” And he twinkled his wicked 
httle eyes. He was an old reprobate, and he dearly loved his 
joke. Miss Varelkamp’s severity of manner made as little im- 
pression upon him as Miss Varelkamp’s tracts. 

“ I’ve read about little Pieter,” he went on. “ He was a very 
worthy lad, was little Pieter, and he made an edifying end. 
But I should like to have seen child of mine who would have 
dared to speak to liis parents in the way that httle Pieter did 
when he reproved his drunken pa. I suppose it’s because the 
good clnldreu aU die in them youth, juffrouw, that the pai’ents 
are always bad in the books.” 

16 


242 


AN OLD I^IAID’S T.OVE. 


“ l^ut I am not f?oinj^ to die,” Jio crital lic'rc.oly, after a mo- 
ment’s silence. “llrin^memy pipe, Willemyntje; 1 can smoke 
it wlicn the ladies ai-o gone. 1 tell yon, 1 won’t die. What 
d’ye come here for and make me think I’m going to ? I’m 
thankfid for the soup and the medicine. Bnt 1 know what the 
visits mean. Yon ladies don’t come to visit i)oor people like 
us tin you tliink tliat w'e’re ‘ confiscated,’ and then you think 
it’s your duty to look in and give us a helping hand into yonr 
heaven'. I won’t go to your heaven. We’ve lived ajiart, and 
we’ll die apart, and if I must go anj^where it’ll be to a hcaviai 
of my own, Jnffrouw Varelkani]), where the poor people gcit 
together and feed off rich men’s tlesh. There’s nothing in the 
Bible about rich men going to heaven ; it’s tlie other place that 
the rich man went to. I want to ” — ho almost lifted himself 
in his chair — “ I want to bo left in peace. I am not going to 
die, 1 tell you. I won’t die. Go away, Jnffrouw Varelkamp, 
and tell the Domin6 I said so. And yon, dear, good Jnffrouw 
van Donselaar, get the cook to send mo some more chicken- 
soup, for the love of your pretty eyes, and give me something 
to buy necessaries. Sickness is a very bad thing for poor jxh)- 
ple, but — sickness — isn’t — death.” lie sank back among his 
cushions, and covered his face with his hands. 

“Let us go,” said Miss Varelkamp sternly. “The rain has 
almost ceased.” 

Dorothy hesitated. 

“ Oh, don’t mind him, please, jnffrouw,” said the affrighted 
Willemyn ; “ it’s only his way. lie often goes on like that. 
We’re not really as poor as ho says. We can get on veiy well, 
thank yon, juffrouw ; and wo were very gi’atefnl for the soup.” 

“ You are poor, Willemyntje,” said Miss Varelkamp severely. 
“ Very poor. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. And nothing 
to boast about. I am poor Mso. Perhaps not (piito as poor 
as you are, but certainly nearer to you than to Miss van Don- 
sclaar. Good-day. Don’t forget the bandages, and that you 
must put them on cold.” 

The idea of Miss Varelkamp’s poverty was botli bewildering 
and amusing to Willemyn. She conld distingiush only two 
classes, her own and the ladies, the poor and the rich. Miss 
Varelkamp was a lady, therefore Miss Vai*ellcamp was rich. 


SUZANNA SPEAKS HER MIND. 


243 


She dropped a timid cmi^jey when Dorothy slowly followed 
Suzaniia, slipping as she went one of her own not too numer- 
ous rix dollars into the girl’s reluctant hand. 

Jakob te Bakel was limping up and down in front of Juff- 
rouw Varelkamp’s cottage. They could see from afar, by his 
restless manner, that he was a prey to overpowering agitation. 
His whole lank frame was quivering with excitement. He 
could not keep it stiU. 

“I have news for you, Juffrouw Varelkamp,” he cried, as 
they hurried towards him. “ Good news, as I take it. Excel- 
lent news ! ” 

Well, what is it?” she panted, seizing hold of his arm. 

“ Madame de Mongelas is not a widow at all. She is mar- 
ried, and her husband is alive.” 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 

SUZZANNA SPEAKS HER MIND. 

“ You remember,” said Suzanna, as soon as they were alone, 
“ what you promised me on the evening of that terrible Sun- 
day?” 

‘‘Yes,” said Dorothy gently. 

“And you are willing to perform it? Any saorifice, if only 
it be for his lasting good ? ” 

“ Dear Tante Suze, what would you have of me ? ” 

“ He lovas you, Dorothy — nay, do not deny it, your heart 
must teU you it is so — and you love liim. But you can never 
be united upon earth. It is not merely your father’s wiQ and 
your filial obedience. These might change at any moment. 
The form of Madame de Mongelas stands irrevocably between 
you.” 

“ But if she has deserted her husband began Dorothy 

involuntarily. 

“ That is her sin, not his, for he never knew it. I am sure 
he does not know it even yet. She is a Papist. I do not 


244 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


loiow what rules of morality she has or ought to have. Per- 
haps she need not have any. I have always told you it is his 
soul alone I am thinking of. And liim I must save. Dorothy, 
I must save him, whatever becomes of me. He must stiU 
marry Madame de Mongelas. Ay, he must marry her all the 
more certainly because of this revelation which Jakob has 
brought.” 

“ But, Tante Suze ” 

Listen to me ; have patience with me. I am only a poor 
old woman fighting for my love. This woman, dearest, she 
has been his cause of stumbhng. And only by deserting her 
can his love, his passion — call it what you will — his choice 
become a sin, the most horrible of sins. I call it his choice, 
and that is enough for me. If the choice be wrong or right, 
herewith I have nothing to do. But he has chosen. It is too 
late. Dorothy, let me say it once more — ^it is the holiest con- 
viction of my heart ; I have ruined my life to remain true to 
it — the man who once chooses a woman to be his is wedded 
to her, and wedded to her for ever — aU separation is deser- 
tion, all subsequent union is — ^hush, let us not say the word. 
If all women thought as I, the world would be, I do not say a 
paradise — ^f or how do I know ? — ^but a better and purer place 
than it is now. It is because they do not think so, because 
they do not care, that men are what they are. There is no 
alternative for Arnout. He must either remain true to his 
wife, or he must desert her. He may not, he cannot desert 
her. And you, Dorothy, you could not, by marrying him, 
now he is married, stoop to ” She stopped. 

“ But it is Madame de Mongelas who is manded already,” 
said Dorothy. 

“ No ; the Frenchwoman is divorced. On her own head be 
her gmlt. She has deserted her home j she has committed the 
crime from which I must save my boy. The Vicomte de Mon- 
gelas is no longer her husband.” 

“ J akob said that he was,” interposed Dorothy. 

“ In name, child. So be it. But once more I ask you, are 
these matters social conventionahties ? Dorothy, oh, my blood 
can bod within me ! Nowadays, in our civdized communities, 
the covenant of marriage, what is it but a stroke of the regis- 


SUZANNA SPEAKS HER MIND. 


245 


trap’s pen ? Have they sold you your little paper — what do 
they call it — certificate ? Oh, it’s aU right ; then you’re mar- 
ried. You whose names are down, because you told him to 
put them there — ^A. and E. Never mind about B., who pos- 
sesses all those holy claims with which the registrar has noth- 
ing to do. Never mind about B. at home in her garret with 
her deserted infant. Is there a baby ? So much the worse 
for it, and for B. Call in the right reverends to bless the civil 
marriage, and to sanctify it ! In the name of the Father, etc. 
God’s curse upon you, smooth-faced priests of Venus, who 
daily hallow adultery by the blessings of the Church ! ” 

She was violently excited. Her wan face flushed, her whole 
being trembled beneath the storm that swept over it. She 
paced up and down the room 'with her hands clasped in front 
of her. 

“ Hush, hush, dear tante ! ” said Dorothy, rising to take her 
hand and draw her down upon the sofa. 

But she gently shook her off. “ Girl,” she said, I teU you 
I have sacrificed my whole life — and the best of us can give 
but that — to the holiness of this truth I advocate. And now, 
in my old age, I am called upon to vindicate it once more. It 
is not my fault if others, such as your father or your brother, 
think differently. The Frenchwoman is separated from her 
husband. She is separated by that crime for which the Bible 
sanctions divorce. I must, then, obtain of her husband that 
he now divorce her, legally, where morally she is no longer 
his. What else can I do ? It is right that it should be so.” 

“ But divorce,” said Dorothy in an awestruck tone, “ is that 
not always a wickedness ? ” 

“ No,” said Suzanna vehemently, “ not of the deserted one. 
Only of the deserter. Do you forget what our Saviour 
says 1 ” 

“ But then, Tante Suze,” asked Dorothy hesitatingly, “ why 
did you not try to obtain that Madame de Mongelas should — 
desert Amout ? ” 

“ Girl,” almost shrieked Suzanna, turning fiercely upon her, 
“ do you also tempt me — like the minister of God ? Do you 
not think I have yearned for it, day and night ? Do you not 
think I have longed to offer her every penny I possessed if 


246 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


she would leave him ? Who am I that I should persuade even 
mine enemy to mortal sin ? I could take^ it upon myself for 
his sake, and I did so ; but what of the other — of the Papist 
— of her ? ” 

Dorothy gazed at her, without speaking, but she read the 
question in the girl’s eyes. 

“ I know what you would say. Who am I, a would-be mur- 
deress, to shrink from guilt? Well, yes, I, a would-be mur- 
deress. But the guilt of that deed was mine, for his sake, none 
other’s but mine. I must bear it, and account for it, and 
expiate it. And I cannot draw others on to wickedness for 
him, I cannot, I cannot,” she repeated wildly, as if strug- 
gling with herself. “ Do you not see that I cannot ? I have 
proved it to myself over and over again. If I am wrong, I 
can’t help it. If you don’t understand human hearts, I can’t 
help it. Leave me in peace with my own wickedness, and my 
own thoughts of right and wrong. Perhaps some day I shall 
weep tears of blood for my mad hate of that woman, and 
what it led to. Do you think it would have led me so far if I 
had thought of these matters as other women think ? Because 
I knew that not a moment’s whim, but his whole Ufe’s voca- 
tion, was trembling in the balance ; because I knew that from 
that night’s supreme decision there could be no repentance, no 
remission, no turning back ; because — because — oh, my God, 

because ” She could get no farther. She buried her face 

in her hands and stood trembling like an aspen. 

“ Your sacrifice,” said Dorothy softly, “ shall be mine.” 

And then Suzanna moved from her attitude of suspense. 
She came up to Dorothy and kissed her on the forehead. 

“ I must go to Paris myself,” she said, “ to-morrow. Nobody 
else oan do it. Is it far, Paris ? Have you any idea how far 
it is?” 


DOYER TELLS SUZANNA’S STORY. 


247 


CHAPTER XXXV. 

DOYER TELLS SUZANNA’S STORY. 

“ You are too much in earnest, my young friend,” said Mr. 
Doyer, leaning back behind the blue curls of liis cigar-smoke, 
and stretching out his legs. “ Or rather you are, if you will 
allow me to say so, not earnest in the proper place. You take 
seriously those things which you ought to treat with greater 
f acihty ; and, on the whole, you are perhaps inchned to pass 
over too lightly those matters of life which are of the most 
vital interest.” 

“It ah. depends on what one considers important,” said 
Amout moodily. 

“ That is true. I agree with you. The hotel-keeper here 
has reaUy very decent whisky.” 

“ Now, I consider there is nothing of greater importance in 
creation than this question of the love wliich one human being 
bears to another. It is the only thing worth living for.” 

“ There I cannot agi'ee with you,” said Doyer, stiU watching 
his tobacco-smoke. 

“ Wliat then,” cried Arnout, “ is there else ? ” 

“Money-making,” said the American cooUy. He brought 
down his eyes from the ceiling, and emptied his cotfee-cup. 

“ That is horrible,” said the young Dutchman with a shud- 
der. “ Horrible ! AU the difference between the stars and — 
an ink-blot. The thoughts of an angel, and the vomit of a 
dog.” 

“ You are poetical,” replied tu^ older man quietly, though > 
a faint color underspread his dried-out cheeks ; “ and you are 
graphic. Granted. It is another matter whether you ai-e just. 

It is aU veiy well to speak scornfully of money, young su* ; 
but wall you allow me to draw yoiu* attention to one circum- 
stance ? There is no other way of hving than either on the 
money you have earned for yom*seLf or on the money that 


248 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


other people have earned for you. As long as that simple fact 
remains, the question will also remain, whether money-making 
is so very contemptible. I can understand, however, that love- 
making is preferable, especially to the young.” 

He poured himself out another cup of coffee, and very slowly 
and methodically Hfted the milk-jug. And, with his eyes intent 
upon the sluggish stream issuing from the spout, he added 
thoughtfully — as if speaking to himself — 

“ Even on another person’s money.” 

For a moment Amout hardly realized the words. Only for 
a moment ; then they crystallized, as it were, into shape in his 
brain, never to leave it again. 

“ Who are you,” he cried, starting up with cheeks aflame, 
“to dare to address me thus? "What right have you, with 
your insolence, to judge my conduct or my motives ? Yes, sir 
— ^with your insolence. You are an old man, but I cannot 
regret the word. Wliat right have you ? ” 

“Hush, Amout, sit down,” said the stranger coolly. He 
did not remove his eyes from the milk jet, but, all the same, 
he did not seem to notice that the mOk was overflowing his 
cup. 

At the new insult of the half-mocking tone and the familiar 
use of his Christian name, young Oostram clenched his fist. 

“ I assure you that such violence is very youthful. I am 
wflling to answer your question, if you will only be quiet and 
sit down. What right have I ? I am your father : that is 
aU.” 

“ You are pleased, sir,” cried Amout, “ to be funny. To be 
impertinent, in one word, as well as insolent. For me it can 
only be painful to hold such parley as this -with a man who is 
indeed old enough to be my father, as you say. I have the 
honor to wish you good-evening, and, while thanking you for 
the kindness you have shown me in the past (hang his 
cigars !), I must request that in the future you will leave me 
in peace.” 

“ D — n it ! ” cried Doyer, throwing down the empty milk- 
jug and also starting to his feet. “Stay here, you sir — 
Amout, do you understand me ? Listen to me.” The young 
Dutchman continued his slow walk down the terrace. The 


DOVER TELLS SUZANNA’S STORY. 


249 


American sprang after him, calling ont, “Look here! Do 
you see this little revolver?” — he had di’awn one from his 
pocket. “ If you don’t stop and hearken to what I’ve got to 
say, I’U send a bullet through yom- hat.” 

Amout did not turn his head, and therefore he did not see 
the little revolver. But the next moment a buUet whizzed 
through his hat with a faint click, and went soaring away 
into the stiU air. It was not really a risky thing at that short 
distance — not even with a revolves* — for a man who knew 
himself to be a first-rate shot. 

“And the next,” cried the stranger, his voice hoarse with 
agitation, “ will be for your head, unless you stop.” 

But our stubborn young friend marched stohdly on. The 
American threw down his weapon with another oath. “ You’re 
plucky,” he said, “ there’s no denying it. Come back, Arnout. 
It’s Gospel truth I’m telling you. I am your father, so help 
me God ! ” 

Oostrum stopped, hesitated, half turned round. The other’s 
tone was not that of a man who was joking. Perhaps he was 
deranged in his mind. 

“ Come and sit down and listen quietly. It’s a long story, 
but I won’t teU you all of it to-night. I am your father, as I 
said to you. It’s nothing to be so very angry about.” 

“ My father is dead,” said Arnout. 

“ Not if he knows it, he ain’t. Nor don’t mean to be for yet 
awldle, boy ! Pretty lively, thankee, considering that dig in 
the ribs he got in San Domingo,” said the stranger, dropping 
into English. Then he went on m French: “No, my son, 
you may stiU rejoice in the possession of a parent. Woidd 
you like to hear him talk Dutch ? It is sixteen or seventeen 
years since he left his mother-country, but he can stiU say 
‘Asjebhef, meneer.’ ” He held out a chair to Arnout as he 
spoke the last two words. 

Arnout came back to the table and, taking up the revolver, 
which still lay where Doyer had thrown it down, he quietly 
dropped it over the balusters into the basin of a fountain 
underneath. “ I don’t hke firearms,” he said, “ in the hands 
of” — he checked himself — “those that use them.” And then 
he sat down, with his, hands in his pockets, and waited for 


250 


AN OLD IMAID'S LOVE. 


what was to come. He did not believe the stranger even 
yet. 

That gentleman poured himself out two httle drams of 
whisky in succession, and drank them off. Then he said — 

“ It’s ail true, every word of it. I was coming to Holland 
on purpose to see what had become of you, when what must 
I do but run across you in that Cologne hotel. Name ? I 
know your name weU enough, though it isn’t mine. No more 
is Doyer. I took that oa so as you shouldn’t spot me first 
sight. I haven’t been ashamed of my name, not even when I 
got into pretty scrapes with it. I’ve always pulled it through 
the bramble bushes somehow, and managed to get my pick- 
ings where I could. You’re .^mout Oostrum, you are. And 
I’m Arnout Donselaar.” 

“Donselaar!” cried Arnout. “You are Dorothy’s uncle 
that ran away ! ” 

“ That was shipped off abroad, if you hke. It was no run- 
ning of mine ; and, besides, I was past forty. I’m many years 
older than my immaculate brother, but he got together a 
family council all the same, and they bundled me out of the 
kingdom. I can’t say I was loth to go, even though I had to 
leave you behind.” 

Arnout made a gesture of impatience. 

“ No, my boy, it’s no use your denying it. You’re Arnout 
Oostrum. It was your mother’s name, and it’s yours. I hear 
she died not long after I left the kingdom, and then, it appears, 
Suzanna Varelkamp turned up in the nick of time to look after 
you.” 

“ Then, ff this story be true, you deserted my mother? ” said 
Arnout in a trembling voice. 

“ What could I do, boy? I hadn’t above a thousand florins 
in the world. I gave her three hundred of them. We had 
hved together, till my fathej:*’s death brought on the crash.” 

“And what connection was there between Juffrouw Varel- 
kamp and me ? ” queried Arnout anxiously. 

“ None whatever. That is to say — ^yes, I had better teU you 
everything. I was engaged to Juffrouw Varelkamp ; I was 
to have married her. In fact, the date was fixed. It would 
have made another man of me. And, then, she found out — 


DOYER TELLS SUZANNA’S STORY. 


251 


I by accident — ^this about your mother, and she broke it off at 
! once. She talked some nonsense about bigamy, and my being 
married already. She was a young gud at the time, and she * 
told me she’d never have me as long as the other was my wife. 

. I lived with your mother for many years afterwards, Arnout. 

; She was a very good soul, but not the kind of person I could 
possibly marry, and, after a considerable time, when I saw 
that Suzanna was inexorable, you were bom. It was very 
stupid of her, and I dare say that now she most deeply regrets 
it. The strangest part of the whole story is that I’m con- 
vinced she was as fond of me as any girl can be of a man, and 
I’m sure that I liked her weU enough. Oh yes, I liked her. 
She wasn’t by any means bad-looking, I can assure you. Yes, 

I always consider that Suzanna Varelkamp did me the greatest 
injury of my life. But she seems to have been good to you.” 

“When my mother died, deserted,” said Aimout, looking 
away towards the dark mountains and the far black water, 

' “ I suppose I was penniless.” 

“ Unless you had a penny in your pocket for sugar-plums,” 
answered Mr. Donselaar-Doyer jocosely. “ I don’t fancy she 
can have left much behind her.” 

“ Thank you,” said Amout. “And now — supposing aU this 
to be tme — what is your object in recalling it? ” 

“ Oh, hang it ! ” answered the newly found parent, “ is that 
the light in which you look at the matter ? Why, it’s the — 
what d’ye call it ? — the prodigal father’s return, or some such 
thing. After aU, you’re my son, Arnout, and I want to see 
what I can make of you. It’s very lonely, growing old alone, 

I can teU you. I’ve had a rough time of it for many years, 
and it wasn’t till I thought that you’d find it worth your 
while that I made up my mind to come and look after you. 

I did it quick enough, then.” 

He crossed and uncrossed his legs, and then he poured him- 
self out a fourth glass of whisky. Evidently he had not found 
the explanation as easy as he had hoped. Then he went on — 

“ It’s just simply this. I’m rich now. I’ve a lot more money 
than I can possibly use for myseK. I’ll take you back. I’U 
make a man of you. We shall rub on very well together, I 
have no doubt ; and I’U get them to give you my name over 


253 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


yonder, where they’ve not those brutal Dutch laws. And 
there’s that little fiUy of my brother’s — the scoundrel ! — didn’t 
»I understand you to say he had a daughter? Perhaps you 
might as weU marry her, Amout. I bet she’U have a pretty 
penny to her fortune. Trust the young curmudgeon, her 
father, for that.” 

Amout did not answer. He was lost in a maze of conflict- 
ing thoughts. 

“Aunt Suzanna must have loved you very much,” he said 
at last. He was thinking of the life of sacrifice devoted to 
him, for his father’s sake. 

“ The more fool she not to marry me. It’s no use taking 
these things too seriously. And that’s why I spoke to-night, 
although originally I had intended to wait a little longer. 
You are getting into a mess, my dear Amout, with this French 
sister of yours. Tmst me, you had better leave off in time. 
She is dazzlingly beautiful, and charming, and I can very 
weU understand a young feUow having his head turned by 
her. But you have had it turned quite long enough. Never 
mind heads being turned as long as they don’t get screwed in 
that position. And it’s high time you were twisting round.” 

“ Sir ! ” began Amout with aU his hauteur. 

“ Nonsense ! Surely your father may speak about the sub- 
ject. I teU you that both you and she have had enough of 
each other. I can see what I can see. You quarrel. And 
you are out of sorts. This is the moment to leave off, for this 
is the moment when things become serious. And, as I said 
at the beginning, if you once treat a hght matter seriously, 
you win have to treat all the serious things of life lightly 
henceforth. Take warning by me. I have been very frank 
with you to-night that you might do so. Now, or never, is 
the moment to escape. If you once go on staying together 
after you have left off wanting to do so, there is no reason why 
you should ever separate. And that, of course, is impossible, 
absurd. The woman is an adventuress.” 

“ I will hear nothing,” cried Amout fiercely, “ not even from 
you, against Madame de Mongelas.” 

“ Tush ! You are aU for the tragic side. Passionate but 
piue — and that kind of thing. Suzanna’s teacliing, I sup- 


DOYER TELLS SUZANNA’S STORY. 


253 


pose ; though Suzanna’s teaching has ended rnmmily enough 
with you, my boy. I don’t quite see it. And, besides, I pre- 
fer blonde women. WeU, you must just think it out. You 
now know my offer. Come with me, and be Arnout Donse- 
laar ; but I must say that my meaning is, minus Madame de 
Mongelas. How about my brother’s daughter? You know 
her. Do you think she would do to make you a nice little 
-wife ? ” 

“ Miss van Donselaar is a most lovely and most charming 
girl,” said Arnout, glad of the shadow in which he sat. 

“Come on. So much the better. Then we must have a 
wedding in a couple of months. I don’t think her father’ll 
object when he hears what I can do for you, and I should 
like to make up with my relations. And so ‘ Good-bye ’ to 
the ravishing Frenchwoman ! What do you say ? ” 

“ I must see,” said Arnout, “ I must think of it.” 

“ Do so, only not too long. Most decisions get the worse 
for being thought over after they were come to. And take 
to heart what I told you about love-making not being the 
most important thing in existence. It’s the garnish — I don’t 
deny it — but the solid dish is ambition. The making a name, 
and a fortune, and a position in the world, that’s what a man 
puts his shoulder to the wheel for. I’ve made the fortune, 
and now I want my son to get the honors. You can’t dawdle 
on for ever in orange-gi*oves and under roses — and the money 
not even yours.” 

“ Good-night,” said Arnout, rising to go. 

“Good-night, Arnout. I should think we might shake 
hands.” 

Amout let his hand lie for a moment in the old gentleman’s. 

“Ahd I think you might-just for the joke of the thing — 
not that I care for it. I’m not sentimental — dash it ! — ^but 
because it would sound so comical, — ^you might just call me 
father, for once.” 

“ Father, if you like, mynheer,” said Amout, and went his 
way. 

“ It’s not nearly such good fun finding a son as I had ex- 
pected,” said the stranger to himself with a bitter sigh. “All 


254 


AN OLD IMAID'S LOVE. 


tlie same, he’s a good lad, a plucky lad, and a lad of spirit. 
I’ve watched him long enough, without his knowing it, and 
he has the making of a man in him. He’s yoimg still, and 
tills love-affair is a foohsh business, but it’s the kiiid of thing 
that proves the mettle of a boy. He’ll be all the better for it. 
Only I wish we were weU through.” 

Arnout, leaning over his balcony in the darkness, had 
thoughts enough to occupy his mind. There was something 
pleasant, undoubtedly, to a young fellow who thought himself 
penniless a couple of hours ago, in the discovery of an utterly 
unexpected fortune, even when that fortune was handicapped 
by an objectionable parent. Perhaps he scarcely had a right 
to call this new-found progenitor objectionable. He certainly 
could not say that he felt drawn towards him. But here was 
the fortune, and the future name of Van Donselaar, and 
every chance of consent from Dorothy’s father, should that 
consent ever come to be asked. 

He tore himself away at last from his own cogitations, and 
stepped back into the room and lighted a candle. 

The light revealed a letter lying on the table. It had 
doubtless come by the evening post, and been brought up into 
liis room. 

He glanced at the superscription, and tore it open. It was 
from Dorothy. 

“ Dear Arnout, 

“ Wliat would explanations avail, when they can 
alter neither the past nor the futm-e ? You have chosen your 
wife in the sight of God, and are bound to her by irrevocable 
ties. Love her, then, and be a good husband to her unlo the 
end. I shall rejoice above all things to hear that you are 
happy, but I know that you will never be that till you have 
manled her also in the sight of your feUow-men. Happiness 
is not a matter of temporary pleasure, or even of lasting 
worldly success. It is a matter of doing right. 

“ With the most earnest prayer for your weU-being, bodily 
and spii’itual, I shall ever remain your faitliful friend, 

“ Dorothea van Donselaar.” 


MEVROUW BARSSELIUS GOES TO SEE A BABY. 255 

He struck down the candle to the gi-ound in a passion of 
he knew not what wrath and despair. 

^^Ai-nout,” cried a voice, disturbed in the stillness, “ are you 
in yoiu* room ? How long you have been away ! How late 
it is ! Oh, it is wrong of you to leave me alone like this ! ” 

“Dorine, Dorine!” he said to himself with vehemence, 
“ you are the only creatm-e in the world who has ever reaUy 
loved me ; and they want me to lose you. I love you, Do- 
rine ; I love you ! I wiU never give you up ! ” 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 

MEVROUW BARSSELIUS GOES TO SEE A BABY. 

Dorothy had written her letter a day or two before the limit 
accorded by Me vrouw Barssehus for Aniout’s retm-n. “You 
remember,” Juffrouw Varelkamp had said to her, “that this 
worldly advantage is another which you are letting shp. It is 
of importance, especially as regards your father, for he is one 
of those men — ^you know it as well as I do — who pay atten- 
tion to such matters. If he knew that my nephew Arnout 
was Mevrouw Barssehus’s heir, he would probably be inchned 
to look with far more favor upon his suit. Now, I know my 
sister Anneftiarie. She is good-natiu*ed, but she is pig-headed, 
and I fancy she wiU stick to her arrangements. At this mo- 
ment the money is stiU there. Have you taken all this into 
account ? ” 

“My dear juffrouw, you are piling up the agony^” Dorothy 
had answered. “ Do you know, it is almost unkind.” 

“ It is my duty,” said Suzanna shortly. She sat bolt upright 
over her knitting. She still knitted unceasingly. For she had 
quietly gone on with that dozen of woolen socks she had been 
getting ready for Aimout’s winter provision. Only she dropped 
a stitch now and then, as she worked, at rare intervals, when 
she could not see clearly, because of that film between the 
needles and her eyes. “ She is very hard-hearted,” said the 
neighbors, as they passed by and saw her sitting mider the 


S56 


AN OLD JMAID’S LOVE. 


shade of her window-curtain, ceaselessly knitting. They said 
so, because she had refused their sympathy indiscriminately, 
meeting all inquiries and insinuations with a frigid stare and a 
pohte “ My nephew has gone abroad for a time.” Only to one 
or two of her most intimate Sunday cronies she had purposely 
added, “ You will hear news of his formal engagement, prob- 
ably, very soon ; but do not speak of it to any one.” The old 
ladies had told this bit of gossip all over the village, and the 
village shook its head, to a man, and looked unutterably wise. 

Suzanna had been obliged to postpone her departure for a 
day or two, just long enough to procure a small sum of French 
money, and to arrange her few indispensable travelling things. 
She was to leave for Paris on Monday, the infoimation with 
regard to Madame de Mongelas’s husband having reached her 
on Thursday afternoon. She would not have travelled on a 
Sunday, not even, I fancy, to have saved Arnout’s life. 

But she would attempt a mm*der, you will say? Ah, that 
was to save his soul — a very different stake in Suzanna’s esti- 
mation. Besides, although Suzanna persisted in fiercely look- 
ing upon herself as a murderess, and in vehemently rejoicing 
over her attempt to deliver her nephew, even by a crime, yet 
it must not be forgotten by those who judge her, that her deed 
was the outcome of a moment’s frenzied confusion. Not much 
more, when you come to think of it, than the tremble of a 
hand. At least, that was what Madame de Mongelas said, 
after the first fiash of anger and alarm. But Suzanna thought 
otherwise. And at the bottom of her heart, deep down under 
all the passion and the exultation, smouldered a fii*e of burn- 
ing reproach for a sin that lay unconfessed. 

Mevrouw Barsselius had anxiously counted the days as they 
passed, but it was not tdl they had actually exceeded their al- 
lotted number, that she realized how her cleverly conceived ar- 
rangement had failed. She came into her breakfast-room after 
a bad night — an unusual thing with her, in spite of her care- 
f idly cultivated asthma — and she complained bitterly to herself 
of the ungi-atefulness of poor relations, as she got ready her 
sohtary cup of tea. She scolded Bijou, a new habit she had 
got into of late. Bijou had good reason — if only he had 


MEVROUW barsseluts goes to see a baby. 257 

known it — to regret the manifold delinquencies of Arnout Oos- 
tnun. But he did not know it, and he only came to the con- 
clusion that his mistress was growing very cross and unman- 
ageable, and that, really, he would have looked for some other 
place of residence, if she had not been so inordinately attached 
to cold chicken, a weakness he found himself quite able to 
share. He grumbled, then, as he crept into his basket, but, 
once in it, he soon fell asleep. And she gi’umbled, also, as she 
read over a charity prospectus which the postman had kindly 
brought her. She abused the promoters of the movement dur- 
ing the whole of her protracted breakfast, and then, finally, 
she crumpled up the paper and threw it into the slop-basin. 
But next morning she sent them a lix-doUar with her compli- 
ments. She pulled an ugly face over the gift, as she did it up 
in a bit of white paper, but the recipients did not see the grim- 
ace, and they bless her memory to this day. 

“ I shall go and see Suzanna,” she said, as she rose from be- 
hind the tea-tray, brushing off the crumbs with her fat hands 
from her brown silk dress. ‘‘ I must give her a bit of my mind, 
and aU the good people of the village. It is a pity of the 
young fellow ! To be ruined by a pack of women for a couple 
of whims.” 

So she had the close cab from the stables, with the two 
meagre horses and the coachman who was never drunk before 
three in the afternoon, and she drove round to fetch Mejuff- 
rouw Adelaida V onk to accompany her. Mejuffrouw Adelaida 
Vonk lived over a tiny shop full of baskets and brushes at the 
far end of the “ Straight New Canal,” which is called so be- 
cause it twists in and out, and is three hundred years old at 
the least. 

The New Canal, like most of the canals of the good old town 
of Overstad, sleeps the sleep of dignified repose. Its sluggish 
waters dribble lazily round the doors of the cellars down be- 
low. You can hang over the iion railings and wonder whether 
they move. High up above them runs the street — no, the word 
is of all others most unsuitable — ^lies the street, on both sides 
of the deep-sunk fine of gloomy water, a rough roadway of 
boulders between two neat stripes of little bricks. The trees 
that border it are green and leafy ; the grass that creeps across 
17 


258 


AN OLD MAID'S LOVE. 


it is also green and fresh. The tall houses, that rise up in 
straggling rows, nod quietly to each other. They are many- 
storied ; the canal is narrow ; the sky is ^ey. If they bent for- | 
ward a little fm-ther, perhaps they might prop each other, j 
There would be nobody to see them do it, for all the inhabit- I 
ants of the place are fast asleep. Not so; you would be 
much mistaken i£ you jumped to that conclusion. They are 
wide awake, every mothei*’s daughter of them, sitting well out 
of sight, behind their little “ spy ” mirrors, watching — like very 
spider's — for a passing ‘‘fly” to creep into them. But the pol- 
ished glasses orily reflect the deserted street. Very rarely does 
cab or carriage rattle down it, making a terrible hubbub on 
the stones. Foot passengers there are, of course, at intervals, 
who shnk along the sombre house-fronts, with seemingly aim- 
less tread. Never, in that drowsy nook, forgotten of the nine- 
teenth centmy, does a man go by who looks as if he had any- 
thing to do, or would be anxious to do it, if he had. In the 
early morning there wfll come a slight mistle in the stfllness, 
because the milkman and the baker and. the butcher go lei- 
surely down the long line and chmb up the taU “ stoops ” and 
r*ing peals that frighten the solemn somnolence of the neigh- 
borhood, but that is ordy a ripple on its repose. At spring- 
time, also, the trees burst into life, and spread forth a splen- 
dor of cool bright verdure, and the birds will come and twitter 
modestly under the leaves. They would not dare to sing. 
And, aU the year round, the front doors are green, and the 
mushn curtains hang white and neat as in a doU’s house, and 
the brass beU-handles sparkle like diamonds, and the gr*ey stone 
stoops are polished till you could eat off them without disgust. 
And sometimes, on rare occasions, a ragged street-boy, lost out 
of the life of to-day, will come tearing down the middle of the 
road, across the gr'ass-grown boulders, hoarsely shrieking “ Ex- 
tra telegrams ! ” “ Latest foreign news ! ” But nobody ever 

buys of him. Not on this canc^ 

As Mevrouw Barsselius’s conveyance rumbled out of a street, 
through which it could barely squeeze its way (but which, 
nevertheless, was intersected by tram-rails), a little boy in 
wooden shoes, who had been standing as if on the look-out, a 
few houses up the canal, turned round and scuttled eagerly 


MEVROUW BARSSELIUS GOES TO SEE A BABY. 


259 


over the stones, crying, “ Here she is ! ” as fast as he ran. The 
part in which Juffronw Vonk lived was the poorer one, and 
just at this point there is a cluster of small dwellings and shops, 
which breaks the line of stateher houses. A number of faces 
came hurrying to the doors, chiefly belonging to old women 
with amazing frilled caps and children in long and numerous 
petticoats. “ Here she is ! ” called out the old women to each 
other ; and the little children cried, “ Hurrah \ ” without know- 
ing why. 

Mevrouw Barssehus looked out of the carriage-window in 
amazement, her great purple face fringed round by the most 
old-fashioned of coal-scuttle bonnets, which she devoutly be- 
lieved to be not only in exact keeping with her style of beauty, 
but highly fashionable as weU. Mejuffrouw Vonk had only 
lately come to live in this neighborhood, having quarrelled 
with her last landlady about the length of a candle, which she 
asserted to have gi-own mysteriously less. Her benefactress 
had not yet condescended to visit her in her new abode, and 
therefore now, having called to the coachman, that lady ap- 
pealed to the little knot of women to learn the exact place of 
residence of Mejuffrouw Adelaida V onk. A cry went up which 
almost frightened the widow, and a couple of httle boys, whose 
feehngs became too exuberant for them, turned somersaults 
into anybody’s lap. “ That’s it ! ” “ Here she is ! ” “ Hurry up, 
ma’am ! ” cried the crowd, which was momentarily increasing. 
It is amazing to watch what a number of little cluldren and 
old women a couple of cottages can vomit forth at a stretch. 
“ Come along ! ” cried one venerable hag, with her skinny hand 
on the carriage-door. “ You shoiddn’t have been so late, ma’am. 
I’ve had fourteen myself, and I know how it feels when the 
nurse comes late.” “No, indeed, juffronw,” cried another 
woman from her doorstep, where she was scratching the shock 
head of a dear little flve-y ear-old. “ It’s a shame, and I was 
teUing Mejuffrouw Vonk so, for you to let the poor creature 
lie without help.” 

Be it known to him who may not understand these allu- 
sions, that an interesting event had taken place that very morn- 
ing in the family with whom dwelt Mejuffrouw Adelaida Vonk. 
It was she who — always fond of interfering everywhere — had 


260 


AN OLD aiAID'S LOVE. 


recommended a special friend of hers as nurse. And this 
nurse, to the indignation of the neighborhood, had not yet ar- 
rived. She had been sent for last evening in a violent hurry, 
and poor Adelaida was much distressed by her failing to ap- 
pear. 

“ Here she is ! ” cried the children. There must have been 
more than a dozen of them. Where did they aU come from ? 
They skipped and hooted round the bewildered Barssehus, as 
a couple of eager arms helped that old lady out and on to the 
pavement. She was set down, struggling and puffing, and 
wondering what it was aU about. And Bijou, who hated all 
common people with canine conceit, stood up, with his slender 
paws on the ledge of the carriage- window, and gave vent to 
his indignation in a series of uninterrupted yelps. 

“ But what is it ? ” gasped the widow. “ In fact, I did not 
want to get out. Wliere is Mejuffrouw Adelaida Vonk? I 
came to see Mejuffrouw Vonk ! ” 

“ Here,” cried the old beldame who was drawing her along, 
“this way! Come along! You’U see quite enough of her, 
and a first-rate scolding you’ll get. Come along, ma’am! 
Whatever did you bring that dog with you for ? ” 

And the children, grouped round the narrow doorway 
through which the fat widow had been propelled, sang in 
chorus, “ I came to see Mejuffrouw Vonk ! Mejuffrouw Vonk ! 
Mejuffrouw Vonk ! ” 

Spluttering and protesting, but forgetting in her agitation 
and the energy of her resistance to say what was really her 
style and quahty, not understanding even, in the heat of her 
anger, that she was being mistaken for some other person, the ' 
indignant widow was propelled up a short staircase and into a 
dark back-room, already occupied by several people. “ Here 
she is ! ” called out her guide, with exultation. “ I’ve showed 
her the way, and I tell her it’s a shame to be behind time, and 
I a mother of fourteen that can know ! ” “ Yes, indeed,” said 
a young man, evidently a medical student, or young doctor, 
turning angrily from the dim hght of the shaded window, 

“ and I really must say, mejuffrouw, that you seem to be very 
iU fitted for your business, if you can’t even get up in the 
night.” “ I am sorry,” fell in Adelaida’s majestic tones, “ that 


MEVROUW BARSSELIUS GOES TO SEE A BABY. 


261 


I ever recommended you to any one, and I should certainly not 
have done so, you worthless creature, if I had had any idea 
you would repay me with incapacity and ingratitude ! ” All 
these reproaches followed each other so rapidily, that not a 
word of explanation could be squeezed in between them, and 
the darkness of the sick-room made it impossible to distinguish 
the speakers. 

The sufferer, hid away in the bedstead, sighed faintly, and 
a querulous little cry, tremulous but persistent, quivered forth 
from somewhere among a group of busthng females. 

The sound of Adelaida’s weU-known voice recalled Mevrouw 
Barsselius’s presence of mind as if by magic. 

“ How dare you ? ” she gasped — for her breath was weU-nigh 
gone. “Adelaida, you insolent creature ! how can you venture 
to speak to me hke that ? This is the worst morning’s work 
you ever did in your hfe, I can assui’e you, and a woman with 
my money ” 

“ Peace ! ” said the doctor authoritatively ; “ hold your tongue 
and do your work, or leave the room ! ” 

“Anna Maria!” cried Mejuffer Adelaida, and burst into 
tears. 

“ Oh, don’t make such a noise, please,” gi’oaned the feeble 
voice from the bed. An angry flutter of protest arose among 
the ladies m attendance on the baby, and the doctdr, inconti- 
nently catching the fat widow by the shoulders, pitched her out 
on to the landing and locked the door. 

“ Oh, let me go to her, I entreat you ! I must speak to my 
poor Anna Maria ! ” wailed Adelaida’s voice from the inside. 
The door was once again opened, and a second female flgure 
— gaunt, this time, and long — was projected into the little 
hall. The exit was effected with unexpected, and perhaps with 
unnecessary, rapidity, and Mejuffrouw Adelaida, shooting down 
on the widow’s ample rotundity, like a knife into a dumpling, 
cut right through some of the softest parts of that lady’s phys- 
ical and psychical sensitiveness. The doctor, as he rebolted 
the door, swore a naughty swear about women in general. 

Anna Maria sat down violently on the square of uncarpeted 
landing, and Adelaida, stumbhng forward in the effort to re- 
gain her equilibrium, gave her benefactress’s poke bonnet an 


263 


AN OLD MAID'S LOVE. 


ungentle push in passing. From the street could be heard Bi- 
jou’s untiring protestations. 

“ Forgiveness ! ” sobbed Adelaida, as she fell up against the 
balusters, 

‘‘ Never ! ” said Anna Maria, rubbing her head. 

“ I took you for the nurse ! ” implored Adelaida. 

“ The repetition of the insult can only augment it,” answered 
Anna Maria. 

“ But the darkness of the room and the agitation of the mo- 
ment ! ” entreated Adelaida. 

“ Oh, anything can excuse the behavior of an idiot,” snapped 
Anna Maria. “ Perhaps you might help me up, if you are not 
too stupid to do it. I don’t know how I shall ever get down- 
stairs again. I should not wonder if the coming up were to 
cost me my life, so it isn’t of much account any way.” Upon 
which she allowed herseK to be tenderly hoisted up and gently 
lifted down to the carriage. Mejuffrouw Adelaida’s angular 
face was the color of a mulberry by the time she had got the 
widow back into Bijou’s obstreperous embraces. Two little 
boys, who stiU hngered, waiting for anything that might come, 
watched with dignified interest as the fluffy ball of excitement 
bounded all over his recovered mistress’s person, licking her 
face wherever he could get at it. “ The one creature in the 
world who shows me unalterable affection ! ” sobbed the widow. 
“ I would not insult him, Adelaida, by saying that you have 
the heart of a beast.” 

“ May I accompany you ? ” petitioned the spinster very hum- 
bly, making herself as small as she could by the carriage door. 
‘‘ Perhaps I might be of service to you, Anna Maria, and afford 
you some necessary assistance, in spite of your already having 
the help of Bijou.” She could not keep back this modest lit- 
tle sneer. The widow was stOl too agitated to notice it. 

“ Oh, come if you like,” she whined. “ I drove round on pur- 
pose to fetch you, but I little knew what I was preparing for 
myself. Only let us get away out of this horrid, low neighbor- 
hood. I don’t see why you can’t live in respectable quarters 
with the help I afford you. And the Straight Canal is too good 
for you, of course, at the upper end. Biit I can’t stay for your 
bonnet. I feel veiy unwell. I must go home.” 


MEVROUW BARSSKTAUS GOES TO SEE A BABY. 


263 


They drove off together in the direction of Mevi-ouw Barsse- 
lius’s house, the widow still gasping, protesting, and spluttering 
generally. As she gradually smoothed down some of her 
worst-ruffled feathers, she began to realize that, having ordered 
the carriage, and being prepared for the journey, she might as 
weU satisfy her curiosity with regard to the situation of affairs 
at Wyk. And she felt that she could not secure a better op- 
portunity for venting all her indignation on Adelaida, than by 
boxing up that unfortunate spinster with herself during a two 
hours’ drive, 

“ The air will do me good,” she said, as she bade Mejuffrouw 
Vonk let down the farther glass a couple of inches. “ Oh no, 
we cannot go back for your bonnet. You will either drive 
without it to Wyk, or you will walk home as you are, I dare 
say they’re not accustomed to bonnets in that neighborhood, 
and probably nobody would mind.” 

She started the theory that Adelaida had got up the whole 
scene she had just passed through on purpose to insult her, 
and she climg the more tenaciously to her assertion the less 
she found herself able to defend it. At last, in the heat of the 
argument, she did not hesitate to answer “Yes” to Adelaida’s 
indignant question, whether she thought the baby had been 
bom exclusively on that account. 

“ Produce your nurse ! ” she cried triumphantly, as if thereby 
clinching the argument, “ only produce her ! You know you 
can’t. You haven’t got a nurse to produce. Yah ! ” 

“ Not in my pocket, no,” replied Adelaida ; “ but if you will 

come to the house to-morrow ” 

“ I return to the filthy hole,” snorted the Barsselius, “ at a 
second risk of catching the measles, if I haven’t caught them 
already ! You are too good, Adelaida, you are really too pain- 
fully kind. No, thank you ; I have had quite enough of visits 
to hovels, to — to dustbins, pigsties, dunghills — ^yes, dunghills. 
Yon must really excuse me, Adelaida.” 

“ Do you mean to insinuate,” queried Mejuffrouw Vonk, who 
had come to the end of a naturally short temper, which was 
only artificially — and, it must be confessed, inordinately — 
lengthened out by considerations of her legacy — “ do you mean 
to insinuate, Anna Maria, that I am comparable to one of those 


264 


AN OLD IHAID’S LOVE. 


useful, but unpleasing domestic animals for whose accommo- 
dation the buildings you mention are erected ; or, otherwise, 
that I might be alluded to as one of those articles, which, how- 
ever necessary they may once have been, are now considered 
unserviceable, and are therefore cast forth and carted away ? ” 

“ Oh, rubbish ! ” retorted the widow, “ don’t make fine 
speeches to me. You’re like my so-called nephew, only the 
young scapegrace is no nephew of mine. No, Adelaida, you’re 
a very worthy woman, and I won’t deny it. But you must 
excuse my repeating that you are an idiot. Too great an idiot 
to be trusted with money. And after the cruel treatment I 
have received at your hands this morning, I shall certainly 
alter my will. I speak frankly on the matter, as you know. 
And I shan’t leave you the egg-boiler, for you won’t have any 
eggs to boil. Not that any mortal could boil anything with the 
rubbishy concern.” 

With such animated intercourse did the ladies while away 
che long carriage drive. Miss Vonk knew that the best means 
of regaining favor would be to allow the widow to let off all 
possible steam, and she ultimately found herself rewarded for 
a large expenditure of forbearance by the long postponed offer 
of a biscuit from her protectress’s bag. She took it humbly, 
and ate it thankfully. It is aU very well to be proud and to 
have your feehngs, but she had not partaken of a too substan- 
tial breakfast, poor thing ! and there is a certain feeling in the 
region of the stomach which is apt to thrust aU others on one 
side. She was munching her second biscuit, as they drew up 
at Miss Varelkamp’s door. 

Betje ran out to receive them. “ You’re too late, mevrouw,” 
she cried, her face full of importance. “ The juffrouw drove 
off to ,the station exactly half an hour ago ! ” 

The Barssehus thrust her head out of the carriage-window. 
She could just squeeze her bonnet through. “ The station ? ” 
she cried. “ Where to ? What ? Where has she gone to ? ” 
Bijou sat up and recommenced barking. At Betje this time. 

“ I don’t know rightly,” answered Betje. “ It’s to foreign 
parts. She said I must wait quietly tdl I heard from her. 
Juffrouw Dorothy knows. It’s aU Juffrouw Dorothy nowa- 
days. But I believe she has written to you.” 


MEVROUW BARSSELIUS GOES TO SEE A BABY. 


265 


“ Gone away ! ” Mevrouw Barsselius burst out into a violent 
passion. “ Running after Amout, no doubt ! Disgusting ! 
And to think that I should have been in time to stop her, if it 
hadn’t been for your barbarous cruelty, Adelaida! I shall 
never forgive you! Never! The woman will ruin herself 
and him, and the blame will be yours ! It wiU follow you to 
your grave. And whether you hve long or short, you will hve 
and die a pauper ! So much for your baby, and your nurse, 
and all your wicked spite ! ” 

. At which Adelaida, worn out by so much labor labored in 
* vain, began to cry. 

I While the widow Barsselius was driving towards Wyk, Su- 
zanna, having set all things in order and made such simple 
[ preparations as were necessary, was preparing to depart on 
r her hazardous journey into the immeasurable, the unknowable, 
the great vague terror, which lay beyond her httle world of 
honest Dutchdom. She knew nothing of foreign regions, as 
we have seen, than that wickedness was rife there — ^the wicked- 
ness of violence and the wickedness of fraud. But so much 
she knew, that all abominations of bloodshed and of obscenity 
centred in that beautiful city, the Babylon of modem civilizar 
tion, the fountain of revolutions, the mother of things — and be- 
ings — illegitimate. This she knew j and even her stout heart 
trembled at thought of the dangers she was about to face. 
She had courage enough, in her way, as we have seen, to fit out 
a small regiment, but she did not agree with Madame de Mon- 
gelas that danger was a beautiful thing. As long as she could 
she avoided it. And the idea of travelling alone into what 
would probably prove to be a forest full of lions was inexpress- 
ibly dreadful to her. 

She looked out from the fly, as phe drove off, watching the 
httle cottage grow less a-down the lane. Presently it was but 
a speck in the distance, with a stiU far smaller speck in front 
of it. Then the juffrouw could no longer see Betje, who 
stood uselessly waving her apron, the tears coursing down her 
hard cheeks, as if they wanted to mark them in white. Then 
the cab turned a comer, and even the cottage was gone. 

Me juffrouw Varelkamp tried the lock of her flowery carpet- 
bag, and felt — it was the third time — for her keys. Then she 


I 


266 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


placed one hand on her modest store of money, which was 
sewed up in a bag she wore next to her chest. Then she looked 
at her watch, and as she still had half an hour to spare, and 
the station was ten minutes distant, she told herself she would 
be late. 

She had said to Dorothy that she wished to go unattended 
to the train. And, in truth, Dorothy would have found it very 
difficult to accompany her. She was busy making prepara- 
tions for the departure of the family from Steenevest. They 
were to return definitely to Amsterdam in a few days. Karel 
had sailed for Java, without a word of further explanation or 
repentance. Comelie was engaged to a young carpenter from 
a not too distant village (with a thousand florins to her dowry) : 
in one word, that whole little business had been brought to a 
most satisfactory and correct termination. There was a little 
complication, you know, of the customary sort, or there need 
have been no compensation at all. Mynheer van Donselaar be- 
haved with great wisdom and generosity — ^with very great 
generosity indeed. 

“ What ! ” cries Common Sense, “ would you have the respect- 
ability of the family violated, the refinement of the marriage- 
tie destroyed? Would you teU me that wedlock is nothing 

but ” Hush ! I would lay down none of these laws. I, who 

teU you thn story of Suzanna Varelkamp, I am an impartial 
chronicler, or fain would strive to be so. I teU you what she — 
an erring, loving woman — thought and did. Be it for you to 
choose your own right and wrong, if only you are as honest 
as she was. I believe that Mynheer van Donselaar was honest, 
according to his lights, but he was not as particular about his 
lights as he might have been. Most of us, adrift on the ocean, 
are too eager in om* look-out for harbor hghts, and we strike 
against the rocks of the wreckers, because the shortest and 
easiest way out of difficulties tempt us on to our ruin. Let 
us, then, not be too hard on those who are not content with 
the simplest solution, but fancy that the most arduous must 
be the right one because of its peril and its sacrifice. At least 
they aspire unto something better, purer, holier than them- 
selves. And God have mercy on those who have forgotten to 
do that 5 or, who, remembering, deny it. 


MEVROUW BARSSELIUS GOES TO SEE A BABY. 267 

The first object Suzanna noticed as she drove up to the little 
shed which did duty for a station was the lanky figure of Dom- 
inus Jakob te Bakel, standing well out in front of it, gazing 
down the road. 

“I told you not to come, Jakob,” she said reprovingly, as he 
helped her to alight. She was disconcerted by his presence ; 
she was too unhappy to want anybody’s sympathy. 

“And I disobeyed you, Tante Suze. I never do it again. 
Only this once.” 

He helped her with her ticket and her luggage — not an easy 
affair. She could only get her things booked for Utrecht via 
Overstad ; and from that junction she would have to take a 
fresh ticket for Paris. 

“So you see, Jakob,” she said, not very graciously, “it was 
hardly any use your coming, after aU.” 

“No,” he answered quietly; “you ought to have assistance 
at Utrecht. How will you manage to travel alone ? ” 

“ God will help me,” said the murderess. She meant it too, 
every word of it. But her lips trembled with agitation never- 
theless. 

“ There are lions, you know, and tigers,” continued Jakob, 
“ that meet you in the road. In fact, they are to be seen in the 
most frequented parts of the city.” 

“ That is dreadful,” said Suzanna. She did not think he 
meant what he said ; but she did not know what he meant, and 
she was sure it must be dreadful. 

“It is,” continued * Jakob imperturbably. “But the most 
terrible of aU is, when you see one of these Hons driving a pair 
of horses in front of him, and the tiger, perhaps, sitting up be- 
hind.” 

After a moment, during which he enjoyed the not uncom- 
mon experience of seeing his joke fall dead, without an an- 
swering ripple on Suzanna’s face, he added — 

“ Here comes your train. I shall find a carriage for you, and 
then we must separate for a time. Not smoking, I suppose ? ” 

“ Third class,” said Suzanna steadily. “ Farther down.” 

He obeyed her. “ But you can’t travel third-class in France,” 
he said. “No trains ; and what there is, I have been told, 
unfit to be used.” 


268 


AN OLD JIAID’S LOVE. 


“ I shall do it as long as I can,” said Suzanna ; “ and, as for 
unfitness, all foreigners are dirty, and smell of garlic.” 

“ Who has been teUing you that aU foreigners smell of gar- 
lic, Tante Suze ? How many foreigners have you ever seen 1 
Have you ever spoken to one except Madame de Mongelas I ” 

“ Never mind,” said Suzanna, ruffled. “ No ; in fact, I have 
never spoken to any, except to one or two governesses, but I 
have heard a French minister preach. He was a good man. I 
suppose it was very foolish of me, but I remember being much 
surprised to think he should be so good a man — and yet French. 
Put my bag on the seat, please, not up in the net. And now, 
Jakob, good-bye ! ” 

Jakob vanished, as he was bid. 

At Utrecht, as she got out, hot and flurried among the bustle 
of large traffic and small accommodation, the first thing she 
saw was Jakob te Bakel standing on the platform, evidently 
waiting to offer his help. 

“Jakob,” she said, almost angrily, “what is the meaning 
of this — this well-meant, kindly foUy? I told you to stay in 
Wyk.” 

“ But I disobeyed you, Tante Suze ! I will never do it again. 
Only this once.” 

He got her well thi’ough the worry and confusion of fresh 
registration. She had only one small box and her carpet-bag. 
But one box, in travelling, requires almost as much care as 
twelve. Remember that, dear ladies, when paterfamilias com- 
plains of your luggage. And make him take the maximum 
number. For we like to see you tastefully dressed. 

At the frontier station a new ordeal awaited Suzanna in the 
shape of the custom-house formalities. How would she get 
through them ? The question had been worrying her for the 
last hour. 

“ Let me help you with the carpet-bag,” said a voice at her 
side — Jakob te Bakel. 

“ You are going with me, Jakob ! ” she said, altogether dis- 
concerted. “How can you do it? You know I forbade you 
to do it.” 

“ I disobeyed you for this once,” said Jakob as coolly as ever. 
“ I shall never do it again, Tante Suze ! ” 


RIEVROUW BARSSELIUS GOES TO SEE A BABY. 


369 


“ But you say that each time/’ persisted Suzanna. 

“ Oh no — excuse me ; the disobediences all flow together and 
are one. They are my finale, you understand.” 

He opened her bag for her, and locked it again. Then he 
led her to her compartment, and, standing with one foot on 
the step, he said — 

“ Is there any necessity, now that I am traveUing by the 
same train, for our occupying separate carriages ? Or do you 
grant me permission to come into yours ? ” 

And so, after an uneventful journey — uneventful to Suzanna 
except for the fact that now, abroad, even the common people 
all spoke French — they steamed into the Oare du Nord. 

Then came that succession of what looked like meaningless 
annoyances which makes traveUing hideous through the gar- 
den of Europe. For no man in aU creation has such talent for 
unprofitable discomfort as the French railway director — un- 
less it be the French State official. What would Suzanna have 
done ? It may weU be asked again. 

As they at last drove out of the station, after a couple of 
hours’ delay, in their neat Uttle yeUow-glazed cab, Suzanna 
pressed te Bakel’s hand. “ I am glad you came with me,” she 
said. 

That was aU the reward he got for a sacrifice which would 
cost him so much. He had just received a definite sum from 
a lady who had intended it to be spent in the purchase of 
books. It had come in the nick of time, for it had put an end 
to his indecision about going — the “ oracle of the Bible ” hav- 
ing proved inadequate this time. 

It was aU he got. But he knew Tante Suze. And, know- 
ing her, he knew it to be more than enough. 


/ 


270 


AN OLD JIAID’S LOVE. 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 

THE HOUSE IN AUTEUIL. 

A TALL, quiet house in rural Paris — for there is a rui’al 
Paris still — a Paris which is half tramway and races and 
chemin de fer de ceinture, and half viUage-street and pump 
and provincials — a Paris of trim villas with flower-decked 
gardens and contented old rentiers, and of odd little all-round , 
shops, where you can buy cheap toys and sweets as weU as 
vegetables and newspapers — the Paris that lies beyond Passy : 
Auteiul and Boulogne sur Seine (which, by the way, is no 
longer Paris) and BiUancourt. 

A many-storied house, then, in Auteiul, down a quiet sunny 
street, where the blue-frocked children play freely in the 
gutter, and the concierges bring out their chairs on to the 
pavement and chatter over their needlework. The inevitable j 
cafe at the corner (“ dela Republique et de Versailles”), with j 
its smell of absinthe and the inevitable sergent de ville in | 
front of it, in his cape and k6pi. A broad white road and 
white pavements, a strip of garden with green railings and 
red roses, white walls with narrow scarlet-curtained windows 
— and the warmth and the light and the nameless coquetry of 
Paris over it all. Inside, discomfort and cheap finery, tar- 
nished gilding and faded red satin, wax-flowers under glass- 
cases, a crystal chandelier done up in yellow gauze. The 
Paris which the Parisian sees twice or thrice in a lifetime, 12, 
Rue de la Prairie aux Primev^res. 

A concierge appeared out of her underground den when 
Suzanna’s cab stopped at the door, one of those viragoes whom 
Paris loves to produce, a woman of immense bulk, with a 
black moustache, bright black eyes, and untidy hair. It was 
ten o’clock in the morning, and the place was as yet only half 
awake. Suzanna had found it impossible to delay any longer 
in the humble hostelry in which she had passed the night, and 


THE HOUSE IN AUTEUIL. 


271 


she had therefore started early on the long drive out to Auteud. 
J akob accompanied her. But he was to wait for her outside. 
On this she had insisted. She must see the Frenchwoman's 
husband alone. 

“Monsieur le Vicomte de Mongelas, does he live here?” 
asked Jakob, politely lifting his hat to the virago. 

“ Fourth story, second door to the left, opposite the glass 
gallery,” said that lady in one breath and a gruff voice. 

J akob was fain to ask for a repetition of the longest word 
he had ever heard in his life, and, under many snorts and 
scowls of protest from the Cerberus at the Gate, it gradually 
fell into its component parts, and he understood that Suzanna 
must mount four flights of stairs to her destination. 

“Well,” he said, laughing, “it’s a good thing you are not 
Mevrouw Barsselius, Tante Suze.” 

“As if I minded stairs, Jakob,” retorted Juffrouw Varelkamp 
nervously, “ or anything else. If I can get him to do what I 
want for me, it will seem like a ladder that mounts into 
heaven.” 

“ Into heaven ? ” repeated Jakob incredulously. 

“ Yes,” she answered hurriedly, “ the only heaven that is left 
me — the heaven of doing right. Will you ask her to show me 
the way ? ” 

“ Oh, but no,” said the lady of the gate indignantly, when 
this request was made patent to her. “ I am there, monsieur, 
to furnish indications, but I am not an ascenseur. The 
vicomte is at home, you cannot mistake him; but I doubt 
that he will be visible at this hour. You can inquire.” 

“Thank you, madame,” muttered Jakob in Dutch, as he 
helped Miss Suzanna to alight, “ and it seems to me that if 
they could have supplied your head to Cerberus, they need 
hardly have added two more.” 

“ Ces Anglais ! ” grunted the concierge to herself, as she 
crept back. She was right, after aU ; you could not expect 
her to act as parlor-maid to the numerous inhabitants of the 
house. But of French customs, and especially of French 
politeness — ^which is polite, exquisitely polite, except in its 
official capacity — Suzanna and her travelling companion knew 
as much as you and I of Timbuctoo. 


272 


AN OLD JIAID’S LOVE. 


So Suzanna climbed -up-stairs alone; and on the fourth 
story she found a door, as indicated, on which was fastened a 
large visiting card — The Vicomte de Mongelas, Officer of the 
Legion of Honor; Ex-captain of the Fourteenth Chasseurs 
d’Mrique, and, in the comer, the address of a caf4, on the 
Boulevards. 

Suzanna knocked. No answer. She knocked again. Noth- 
ing but the sUence, the beat of her own heart, and a drowsy 
voice, somewhere at the back of the building, droning, “ En 
revenant de la Revue.” 

A few more appeals remained unanswered. The voice in 
the distance went on unconcernedly singing. Suzanna crept 
down-stairs again. 

“ Well ? ” said Jakob te Bakel, waiting in the cab. 

“ There is nobody there,” answered Suzanna faintly. “ Hunt 
up the woman and make her say something, Jakob, please.” 

The concierge proved indignant. Could she help it if ren- 
tiers lay longer in their beds than people who had to work for 
their hving, like her ? The vicomte had been to the theatre 
last night. He had come home by the last train, as he almost 
always did. She had pulled the “ cordon ” for him at half-past 
twelve. He was an old man. He must have his rest. And 
nobody ever came to see him. What did madame want ? 

This last question aroused her curiosity, in the very act of 
putting it. She wanted to follow it up, but Suzanna was not 
going to answer. She stood in the middle of the strip of gar- 
den, uncertain what to do next. 

“Go for an hour’s drive in the Bois de Boulogne, round 
the corner, and come back again,” suggested the concierge, 
who, seeing nothing could be extracted from the strangers, 
was anxious to get rid of them. 

“No,” said Suzanna to Jakob, “that would be unnecessary 
expense. And there has been no unnecessary expense except 
the franc for that pillow you would have me take at Terg- 
nier. I could have rested just as well without it.” • 

The cabman was sulky. He stood reading his Intransigeant, 
and eyeing them from time to time with malevolent eyes. 
He had reason to be angry with foreigners who took him off 
the stand for a drive to Auteuil — ^the ultima thule of Parisian 


THE HOUSE IN AUTEUIL. 


273 


cabmen — and who studied the tai-iff the greater part of the 
way. 

Suzanna dismissed him, paying but a smalj. additional fee, 
and thereby rousing all the latent vehemence of liis Jehu- 
nature. “Abuse me as much as you hke,’’ she said ; “ I don't 
understand you j ” and she sat down on a bench under a 
spreading chestnut tree by the side of the broad pavement, 
and took out her knitting. Said Jakob to the coachman as he 
followed her, “Pas fame, pas bon.” “Go to the devil!” 
growled number 17,317, as he drew the cloth off his horse's 
back. He fired a retiring volley of cabby-amenities at them 
over the roof of his vehicle as he rattled off. 

And then the broad, sunht street grew very quiet under its 
row of majestic trees. Suzanna, on her bench, casting anxious 
glances from time to time at the windows of the fourth story 
opposite her, prepared for the coming struggle. What should 
she say to the man — this gentleman, this foreigner! How 
could she ask of him what she desired to ask — divorce ! Yet 
she must ask it. There was no other way. 

“ Jakob,” she remarked presently, “ I sometimes, when I feel 
how powerless we are, comprehend how useless it is. Do you 
understand me ? ” 

“ Not exactly,” said Jakob. 

“ No ; I do not perhaps clearly understand myself. But I 
mean that it is no good trying. All our right is wrong, and 
so often our wrong is right. Sometimes one thinks it does not 
matter, because, after all, we can do nothiug. But we want 
to do ; there is the mystery. Jakob — teU me, teU me — don't 
you tliink I love God ? ” 

“ Tante Suze ! ” cried the young minister in much distress. 

“ Yes, I know. But what is the use ? He has deserted me. 
I — I am all alone. And ever since — through the last weeks — 
I have been telling myself that I did very wrong — veiy wrong 
towards Madame de Mongelas. But it is only the brain says 
it, not the heart. And the brain rejoices to say how very, very 
wrong it was, because then it can find the easier excuses. And, 
indeed, how could I help it ? I must save him, by fair means 
or foul ! There was only one way, and I tried it. We must 
work out oui’ own salvation with fear and trembling, and we 
18 


274 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


are powerless to do it — oh, my God, we are powerless ! Power- 
less ! ” She bent over her knitting tdl he could not see her 
face. • 

There was silence between them — the passionate old woman 
and the pure young priest. High up in a neighboring tree a 
singing-bird broke into sudden little bursts of song. 

I am only a quiet old Dutchwoman,” resumed Suzanna 
after a tune ; “ but it seems to me, the more I wonder over it, 
that there is no escape for a mind that thinks but idiocy or — 
madness.” 

“ Or faith?” whispered the Domine. 

“Faith, which is idiocy,” gasped Suzanna, “or madness, 
which is doubt. What am I to believe — ^you, who wear a white 
tie and know ? Am I to believe that it was God’s will that 
Amout should be ruined, body and soid, by this strumpet ? 
That, to me, is idiocy. Or am I to believe that He wished me 
to save the boy by kUling her ? That, to me, is madness ; for 
I failed. Am I to rejoice that I failed, when my failure means 
the boy’s perdition ? Should I have rejoiced, had I succeeded, 
when murder meant his deliverance? What do we know? 
What must we do ? Must all the world go wrong because we 
may not be our own avengers ? Must evil triumph because it 
were wrong to arrest it ? To work out our salvation ! And 
we are powerless to do it. Powerless! Oh, my God! my 
God ! ” 

Again there was a moment’s sdence. What was Jakob, to 
intrude his little moralizing on such an agony as this ? 

“ Let us have no fine phrases,” she said hastily, as if putting 
them away from her. “ I am a religious woman, as you know. 
Oh, of course, very religious. We grow up in our little 
creeds, and are very contented with them, till the moment 
comes to choose. And then we are at a loss. And we stumble 
forward ; and we fall. There is nothing about my case in the 
Catechism; and the Catechism is the whole of religion. I 
have always been taught that.” ^ 

“ Then you have been taught wrong,” cried the clergyman, 
breaking through his reserve at this challenge, and st rikin g 
out straight from the shoulder. “And you know it, Tante 
Suze. Religion is the secret of our heart with God.” 


THE HOUSE IN AUTEUIL. 


275 


“Ah, Jakob,” said Suzanna, smiling sadly, “you say that 
because you are not orthodox. But I cannot uni cam the old 
teaching that was good enough when I was a girl.” 

“Tante Suze,” said Jakob, seeking in vain to steady his 
voice, “there is a school in which we learn with terrible 
rapidity. It is the school of adversity. Perhaps God is teach- 
ing you in that.” 

“ If so, I understand nothing of the lesson,” said Suzanna 
gruffly. 

“ Perhaps it is like a diagram on the blackboard, aU con- 
fusion tni the last touch makes it plain.” 

“ I wid go back again now,” said Suzanna, rolling up her 
knitting. She rose from her seat. As she passed by the 
young Domine, she laid her hand hghtly on his shoulder. 
“ You are very good to me, Jakob,” she said, “ and I thank 
you. But I am too wicked for a good man’s help. I must 
fight out my fight alone.” 

This time Suzanna’s ring was answered with unexpected 
celerity. Barely had she touched the bell when the door was 
thrown wide open, and on the threshold there appeared an 
old gentleman attired in a dingy dressing-gown, which had 
once been aU crimson-petalled flowers. The aforesaid gar- 
ment was thrown back from a coUarless shirt, and on the old 
gentleman’s head was a nightcap with a hole in it. 

“ You are late again, Alphonse,” began the old gentleman. 
Then he cried “ Ciel ! ” and banged to the door. 

But Suzanna was too quick for him, and adroitly inserted 
her sunshade. 

“ Remove that umbrella, madame,” said a grave voice from 
the other side of the door. “ There is some error. It is not to 
me that you destine the honor of your visit.” 

“ I must see the Vicomte de Mongelas, monsieur,” Suzanna 
cried back through the narrow opening, driving down her 
sturdy parasol. “ I have come on purpose from abroad ; and 
my visit is of the greatest importance.” 

The old gentleman’s hold on the door slightly relaxed, but 
he still kept it almost closed. “ It is a foreigner,” he said to 
himseK, “ and therefore probably not a dun. It is I, madame,” 


276 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


he said aloud, “ the Vicomte de Mongelas ; but then, see here 
my dilemma. I am not installed for the visits of ladies. And 
my toilet — forgive me the allusion ” — he pushed the door hard 
up against the parasol — “ is not yet completed. I cannot ad- 
mit you, and I cannot request you to wait on the landing. 
What am I to do ? ” 

“I will wait on the landing,” said Juffrouw Varelkamp, 
till you are ready to receive me.” 

“But it is impossible.” He remained for a moment in 
thought. Suzanna clung to her parasol. “ There is no other 
way,” he said at last. “ You are certain that you are desirous 
to speak to me ? ” * 

“ I cannot go until I have done so,” said Suzanna. 

“ Madame, I would not think of requesting you to. Then ** 
I propose to you that I let go the door, on condition of your 
solemnly promising me not to stir from your place till you hear 
another door close in the passage. Then you will walk in ” 

“And wait in the hall,” inteirupted Suzanna. “Yes, I 
promise.” 

“ Fi done, no, madame. I -will leave open the entrance to 
the humblest of sitting-rooms; and you will, perhaps, have 
the extreme kindness to wait for me there.” 

“ I promise,” repeated Suzanna. 

“ But, pardon,” said the vicomte nervously, “ you ladies are 
sometimes so charmingly playful. Is it a man’s promise or a 
woman’s ? ” 

“ It is a woman’s,” answered Suzanna dauntlessly ; “ but a 
Protestant woman’s. I will keep it.” 

The religious distinction was entirely lost on the old vicomte, 
who knew nothing of Protestants, except that they were 
people who said they had no sins to confess, but whom you 
never came across. He hesitated for a moment, then he came 
to the conclusion that he could risk it, and made a false dart 
down the passage to see what Suzanna would do. 

Suzanna stood motionless outside, without moving her par- 
asol. 

Then the vicomte, reassured, fled back to his bedroom, and 
Suzanna, having heard the click of his door, walked slowly 
across a narrow passage into the dirty little salon. 


THE HOUSE IN AUTEUIL. 


277 


e The room was poor and neglected, full of tawdidness and 
1 dust. Suzanna looked roimd her, at the faded square of ear- 
1 pet on the unpoHshed floor, at the red window-curtains, and 
- at -a few good engravings on the waU — of Napoleon the Third 
. and his wife, and one or two Bonapartist generals, and also 
a couple of beauties of more doubtful rank. And there, on 
, the table, in the middle of the room, stood a large platino- 
gravure photo in a handsome frame, evidently new, of the ter- 
rible woman who had destroyed Juffrouw Varelkamp’s peace. 
No need for her to ask whether she had reached her destina- 
tion. She sank down on a chair against the wall, and waited ; 
but she could not wait long in sight of aU that untidiness. 
She took out a spotless pocket-handkerchief, and began timidly 
to dust the picture of the woman she hated. 

The vicomte, in the meantime, was sitting on his bed in the 
adjoining room, nursing a lean but shapely leg. His fii’st 
thought had been, Has she seen the hole in my nightcap ? ” 
He is waiting for an answer to that question stfll, and he 
would dearly hke to receive one. 

Suzanna had seen it. If she had fallen out of an eighth- 
story window, she would have seen all the dams in aU the 
curtains aU the way down. 

But this doubt was not the most pressing of the vicomte’s 
difficulties. The question which required more , immediate 
decision was this one : How am I to appear before any woman, 
be she ever so old or ugly, now that iniquitous barber has 
again forgotten to come and shave me in time ? First he said, 
“ I cannot do it ; I would rather die.” And then he said, “ It 
is suicide j but I must.” 

He dressed himself with his usual sempulous care. His 
pubhc garments were always unexceptionable. He put on his 
frock-coat with the red ribbon in the button-hole, for he 
detested all oddity in dress, and the absence of the “ distinc- 
tion” would have singled him out among his countr 3 anen. 
And then he looked at himseK once more in the glass and 
cursed the barber. Called the barber, I mean. He called him 
in vain. He called him names. 

“ Which is worse,” he thought — “ to keep a woman waiting. 


278 


AN OLD MAID'S LOVE. 


or to go to her with uiikempt beard ? ” The vicomte was an 
old stager, and he never hesitated in matters of this kind. 
“ To keep her waiting,” he said. And then he took a large 
black sOk neckerchief, and he bound it neatly round his lan- 
tern jaws, and in a httle knot at the top of his bald head. He 
had glossy silver hair, neatly curled over the ears, and a fine 
eagle nose and white imperial. He was a fine-looking old 
man, and he knew it. Ah, how he knew it ! He was a love- 
bacillus, like so many of his race. One twist of his moustache 
meant death. 

“ It is disgusting,” he said, as he surveyed himself in the 
glass, “ like all illness. But it is better than the disgrace of 
dirt. I have a terrible toothache. Voila! The dentist did 
not make them strong enough.” 

And so, as it ever is in life, this solemn climax of Suzanna’s 
fate did not want for its “ note comique.” 


CHAPTER XXXVHI. 

THE VICOMTE’S SCRUPLES. 

SuzANNA slipped her handkerchief back into her pocket, 
and stood up as the vicomte came in. 

“ Madame,” he said, “ I am desolated. Accept my regrets. 
But I am ravaged by the toothache. Yet I could not refuse 
myself to a lady. Will you do me the extreme honor to sit 
down ? ” He handed her a chair as he spoke. And then he 
winced, on account of the pain he was enduring. “Not a 
bad face,” he said to himself, “ not by any means. She must 
have been pretty some forty years ago. Why the deuce do 
they ever grow old ? And why don’t the young ones come to 
see me ? ” 

“ My name,” stammered Suzanna, “ is Mademoiselle Varel- 
kamp. Here is my card. I come to speak to you about your 
wife.” 

“ My wife ! ” The vicomte sank down into a so-called easy- 
chair, and hfted his neat hands in affected dismay. “Les 


THE VICOMTE’S SCRUPLES. 


279 


affaires de la vicomtesse ! Ah, mademoiselle, you ai*e at the 
worst address possible. I am the last person to be informed 
of the affairs of Madame la Vicomtesse.” 

“ If I am not mistaken,” continued Su2anna, gaining cour- 
age, “ you are the husband, monsieur, of that lady whose por- 
trait I see on the table.” 

“ Her husband ? But yes. K you wiU,” said the vicomte, 
smihug. “As httle as possible, however. I presume I am 
still her husband. You could hardly call me her consort. 
And I am not responsible for the actions of Madame la 
Vicomtesse ; stdl less for her bdls.” 

“I c^pe not to speak of her bdls,” answered Suzanna. 
“ What she has taken from me she can never repay. I do 
not expect it. Let me teU you what I wish, and why.” 

“ But certainly, madame,” said the vicomte politely, “ only, 
I beg of you, sit down. And let me also implore you to be 
calm. Aki, my toothache! There cannot possibly be any 
cause for excitement in anything that concerns the fate of 
Madame de Mongelas.” 

“There is only this began Suzanna. “But I must 

warn you to be patient with my French. It is bad, and I 
have much difficulty in speaking.” 

“ Madame,” said the vicomte, “ I wOl not teU you that I had 
not noticed you were a stranger, for I never insult by flat- 
tery ; but I win simply teU you that I took you for a for- 
eigner who had always lived in France.” 

“A hai’,” thought Suzanna j “a flatterer. Let me take 
care.” 

“ Monsieur,” she said, “ your wife, while traveUing in Hol- 
land, was upset out of a carnage, and brought into my house. 
She there made the acquaintance of my nephew, a young 
student of theology, and she ran away with him. They are 
now in Italy. They — hve together. So much, probably, you 
know.” 

“ I ? ” said the vicomte with an amused face. “ I ? My dear 
lady, I know nothing. How should I? These are not the 
things that you charming creatures commimicate to your liege 
lords by a ‘ mot h la poste.' Et apr^s? Do you want your 
nephew back ? I cannot help you, I assure you. I said so 


280 


AN OLD MAID'S LOVE. 


before. Be pbilosopbic, madame, and let him stay till he 
returns of his own accord.” 

“ I do not want my nephew back,” said Suzanna gravely. 

“ Not ? But that is charming. I perfectly well understand 
you. Nor do I want my wife.” 

“ Monsieur,” said Suzanna, coloring all over her pale face, 
and up into the roots of her grey hair, “ your "wife is not "with 
you ; she is "with my nephew. As you say, she is no longer 
your wife. You say also that you do not wish her to retium. 
Then why retain a connection which can only be galling ? ” 

“ Parbleu ! ” said the vicomte, “ it is unavoidable. Madame 
is there ; and that is all. You would not, I presume request 
me to remove by violent means the lady who has done me the 
honor to share my name ? Like the Due de Prashn, eh ? — my 
august connection. Ah, madame, that is ‘ moyen age.’ These 
things do themselves no more. Murder has become so com- 
mon that gentlemen no longer kiU.” 

Suzanna winced. “ I do not mean murder,” she said, tremi’- 
bling so that the parasol shook in her hand ; ‘‘ I mean divorce. 
Why should you not divorce from yoiu wife ? ” • 

In his heart the old vicomte deeply resented the question, 
which showed an unwarrantable interference in his affairs. 
But he was too pohte to pass beyond merely tacit protests. 
He smiled again. He had taken to smiling since he had 
bought his new set of teeth. He forgot the toothache he was 
supposed to have in doing so. 

“Divorce?” he said. “WeU, it would be an idea. It is 
very kind of you to think of it for me. But you forget, 
madame, that the Church forbids it. I am a good Catholic, 
and not a follower of that savior of society, Naquet.” 

Suzanna had never heard either of the reintroduction of 
civil divorce into France by the Loi Naquet, nor of the prohibi- 
tion of any form of divorce by the Romish Church ; so she 
stared at her interlocutor for further information. 

“ Madame,” he continued, “ remember that the Church for- 
bids divorce. I could never think of it, therefore, I. The 
Vicomtes de Mongelas have always gone with the Church.” 

“ It is your religion wliich forbids you ? ” queried Suzanna, 
groping for light. 


THE VICOMTE’S SCRUPLES. 


281 


“ But undoubtedly. And yours — if you permit me ? — does 
it advise you to divorce ? ” 

‘‘ It forbids you irrevocably ? ” 

“ Irrevocably. It is hard ; but we have to obey.” 

Suzanna rose slowly from her chair, stumbling forward, 
and catching at the table as she did so. “ Then I have no 
more to say,” she gasped. “I am sorry I troubled you. I 
will go.” 

“ Stay, madame,” cried the vicomte, interested and curious. 
‘‘ Explain to me, if you wUl have that graciousness, why this 
anxiety to rob me of my wife. Is it hate of her ? Is it to 
punish her ? Ah, you others, you women, you can hate as — 
as angels hate vice. Is it because she has carried off the httle 
nephew ? If he is a pigeon, she will fleece him. Never mind ; 
the fleeced pigeons fly fastest home.” 

“ It is,” said Suzanna, standing by the window and looking 
down at the portrait, “ because I want him to marry her. My 
religion forbids wickedness. He loves her; I would have 
him legalize his love.” This time there was no affectation in 
the gesture of dismay with which the vicomte threw up his 
hands. * 

“ Marry her ! ” he cried. “ Is it possible ? And what injury 
has your nephew done to you that you covet for him the suc- 
cession to the hand of the Vicomtesse de Mongelas ? ” 

“ I love him more than anything on earth,” said Suzanna 
quietly, “ and I am working for his good.” 

“ Madame,” retorted the vicomte, ‘‘ we ai’e speaking in rid- 
dles. The inatter seems of some importance. Let us under- 
stand each other. You are in earnest ; is it not so ? ” 

‘‘ In dead earnest.” 

If I were to die, for instance, there would be a match ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Suzanna. “ But I do not wish you to die. He 
must expiate, as well as I. Yes, there must be expiation.” 

“ I am, indeed, much obliged to you for your kind consider- 
ation. My health is excellent. And now, I take an interest 
in your nephew who, aU unbeknown to me, has usurped my 
place, and in you also — excuse me — because you are a woman, 
and unhappy.” 

Suzanna made a repellent movement. 


282 


AN OLD ItfAID’S LOVE. 


“ Of course, you are insulted by my sympathy. I do not 
desire to intrude it. But, madame, I regret most sincerely 
that you should have taken this long journey in vain. I have 
never refused any woman anything in reason. I do not wish 
to refuse you. Allow me, then, to furnish you with some 
brief information which will cause — not me to refuse, but you 
to retract your request. Shall it be so ? ” 

He had forgotten his toothache. But he carefully rear- 
ranged the black bandage. Suzanna bowed in silent acquies- 
cence. 

“ When I married Madame de Mongelas, madame, she was 
a charming young girl of eighteen. She is charming stUl. 
She wiU ever be charming, hke Ninon de TEnelos. She was 
not my equal in rank, but she surpassed me in fortune. In 
fact, she was the daughter of an honest wine-dealer of the 
Quai de — what’s its name? I have reaUy forgotten. It is 
down there, at the other end, among the wine-vats. No mat- 
ter ; nobody ever goes there. WeU, she was his daughter, and 
she brought her dowry ; but she kept it in her own hands, as 
the bourgeois sometimes arrange matters. It is a vulgar 
arrangement: no woman of dehcate bii-th would desire it. 
We lived together very happily for several years. She was 
charming, as I told you, and — eh bien, I am older — ^but I was 
charming too. 

“ Madame, would you believe that at the end of those years 
she became jealous of a common httle chambermaid? She 
made scenes. No grande dame would have done that; but 
there you perceive the wine-seller’s daughter. She wished to 
drive the poor child away ; but I refused to allow her to de- 
part, for she was a good child, and much attached to me. 
And one day, when I had gone out after one such unpleasant- 
ness, I come back in the evening. I see lights in the drawing- 
room. I mount. I find my servant half dnmk on the sofa, 
with wine in front of him, and my wife at the piano, singing 
to him, with flowers in her hair ! Ah, mon Dieu, how she 
looked at me, the httle devil ! She said nothing but, ‘ Yes ; 
it is amusing. I agree with you,’ and she sailed out of the 
room. Wliat could I do? I kicked the fellow down-stairs 
that night. It was bravado of hers, but I did not dai’e to let 


THE VICOMTE'S SCRUPLES. 


283 


him go. He would have told far more than the truth aU over 
the city. 

“We lived in peace for another week or so — an armed 
peace. Then, one evening, I took my httle chambermaid to 
one of the smaller theatres to amuse her, for the house was 
getting duU and my wife treated her badly. We came home ; 
she at half-past ten, I at eleven. My wife was not there. Is 
it not incredible ? She comes back past twelve o’clock with 
the valet, and she drops his arm in the doorway, in my sight. 
‘Was it amusing,’ she says cooUy, ‘at the Palais Royal? 
Antoine and I, we have been to the Fohes Dramatiques.’ 
Could I support it ? Could flesh and blood ? I thrashed the 
man within an inch of his life that night. And she left the 
house next morning. All Paris knew the story in the course 
of twenty-four hours. I was ridiculous. She had made me 
so, the vixen. I have never been able to hold my head up 
since.” 

“She was guilty?” cried Suzanna eagerly, bending for- 
ward in a passion of expectation. 

“She was guilty, most certainly. Not, perhaps, as you 
mean. She was guilty of being — a wine-seller’s daughter. 
Do women behave like that ? Are they to account themselves 
in such matters the equals of men? Emancipation with a 
vengeance ! Ah, there you could see the petite bourgeoise. 
She was not accustomed to the privileges of a gentleman. In 
her class, perhaps, these matters are treated differently. And 
now, madame, I ask you, whoever you may be, would you hke 
child of yours to marry such a devil of a woman as that?” 

“ She was innocent,” gasped Suzanna, and fell back on her 
sofa. “ Poor thing ! ” 

The vicomte did not heed her. The recital of his -wrongs, 
long pent up, and now so easily told’ to a stranger who would 
disappear out of his life for ever in a few minutes, had pleas- 
antly excited him. He was stiU very angry with his wife, but 
he never had an opportunity of saying so. 

“She intentionally insulted her husband, and exposed to 
public scandal the honorable name she was not worthy to 
bear,” he continued bitterly. “ Such a woman would be capa- 
ble of anything. And tq think that she is the last Vicomt- 


284 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


esse de Mongelas! Madame, as far as I am concerned, I 
would be only too glad if you could alter her style and title.” 

‘'And after that,” asked Suzanna, “during the following 
years — ^what has she done ? ” 

“Madame, I do not know. She has lived with her father. 
When that wearied her, she has travelled abroad. She has 
spent — or is spending — ^her dowry. I fancy she has not yet 
spent it all. But after much good she has probably not been. 
It is not in her character. A woman who deserts her husband 
is fundamentally bad.” 

“And a man, sir, who betrays his wife ? ” 

“Ah, madame, what do you mean by betrayal ? The cases 
are too different to brook comparison. A man betrays his 
wife by desertion, a woman by unfaithfuhiess. I had always 
been a most exemplaiy husband to Madame de Mongelas. 
But she — ah bah, n’en parlous plus! God forgive her the 
wrong she did me, and keep all good men out of her clutches ! 
We must marry women, we men, madame, neither angels nor 
fiends. It doesn’t do.” 

“And you,” said Suzanna deliberately, as she again rose to 
depart, “ you who speak thus are the same man who refuses 
to sue for a divorce on religious scruples. You are like your 
wife, monsieur, whose conscience does not permit her to eat 
meat on Fridays, but who devours a human soul whole as a 
joke.” 

The vicomte shrugged his shoulders. “Affairs of sentiment 
wOl not be discussed, madame,” he said ; “ it is unprofitable. 
And, besides, I wiU not deny that I have stih a foible for 
Madame la Vicomtesse. She is a most fascinating woman. I 
am an old man, and, by running away from me, she has con- 
demned me to a life of discomfort. I would range myseK, if 
she would return to me. But, alas ! she has no intention of 
doing so. This escapade with your nephew is the best proof 
of that. I must wait for the death of her father, and then we 
shall see.” 

“ I am glad to have spoken to you,” said Suzanna, “ but not 
for such reasons as you think. I leave you with the greater 
regret that you refuse me aU co-operation. Good-bye.” 

“ Madame, the regrets are on my side. Ahi, my toothache ! 


THE VICOMTE’S SCRUPLES. 


285 


But I cannot do otherwise. To tell you true, among other 
considerations it is impossible for me to let slip those pecu- 
niary advantages which can still result to me from my union 
with mademoiselle the wine-seller's daughter.” 

“ Money ? ” said Suzanna, pausing in the doorway. “ How ? 
What?” 

“Ah, madame, but you are of a curiosity ! Admii*e, then, 
my adorable frankness. Money! It is a vile thing. And 
nowadays, alas 1 it is a vulgar thing. It used not to be so in 
the good old time. When I married Mademoiselle Coriot, her 
father was very wealthy ; he gave her a dowry of a quarter of 
a million francs, and I was ‘ galant homme ' enough, as I told 
you before, to allow him to settle it on her. He is less wealthy 
now, yet I reckon that, when he dies, each of his five children 
will at least have that sum over again. Madame de Mongelas 
wUl, as long as she is married, have need of my assistance in 
the legal formalities. I have no doubt that she will consent 
to make an arrangement with me accordingly when the time 
comes. I am not an utter imbecile. I gave way in the matter 
of the dowry, when I found the old shopkeeper was obstinate ; 
but we stand on a different footing as regards the inheritance, 
which I thought would be four times as great, and my pretty 
viscountess will have to come to terms.” 

He said all this very calmly, looking thoughtfully at his 
finger-tips, as he spread them out before him. Then he 
drummed them faintly on the table. He had his object in 
making such confidences. He was wondering whether the 
money side of the question would prove to have any interest 
for Suzanna. “She is poorly dressed,” he said to himself; 
“ but, then, that proves nothing. The quality of the stuff is 
good. And she may be stingy, like most old women. My 
aunt De Monceaux was smothered in millions, and she looked 
lik e a beggar woman. She got a franc one day from a benev- 
olent old gentleman, as she sat on a bench in the Bois de 
Boulogne, and she bought a pair of mittens with it that lasted 
her three years.” 

“ How much,” said Suzanna, stOl standing in the doorway, 
“ do you expect, sir, that you will be able to extract from your 
wife?” 


f 


286 


AN OLD JIAID’S LOVE. 


She was no longer afi’aid of him. AH her unwilling respect 
for the fine gentleman had faded away. And the momentous 
interview, with its mighty stake, had dwindled into a money 
transaction. 

He, on his side, felt sorely tempted to increase the sum he 
had in his head. Who could tell what opportunity here pre- 
sented itself of escaping, once for all, from duns and discom- 
fort, and a fourth-story lodging in Auteuil? But, with his 
peculiar standard of honor, while he was not unwilling to sell 
his maniage-tie, he could not, for more than one moment, 
entertain the idea of extorting money from this woman by 
false pretences. 

“ I conclude,” he said, “ that she ought to let me have half. 
Yes ; the death of old Coriot ought to be worth to me, let us 
say, a hundred and twenty-five thousand francs.” 

‘‘And if you had these,” asked Suzanna, “ you would consent 
to the divorce ? ” 

“ Madame, as I have already repeatedly mentioned,” said the 
vicomte with dignity, “I have religious scruples. They are 
very serious. They concern my peace of soul. They should 
be worth at least twenty-five thousand francs more.” 

Suzanna paused one moment to do a mental sum. Then 
she said, “ I offer you one hundred and thirty-five thousand 
francs. I offer you no less and no more. WiU you have 
them ? Yes or no ? ” 

The vicomte scanned her face. “ Je ne marchande pas avec 
les dames,” he said. “ I will have them. It is agreed.” 

“ You consent to bring a suit against your wife immediately 
for divorce ? And you bind yourself to assist me, by every 
means in yoiu* power, to effect a marriage between her and 
my nephew ? ” 

“So be it,” said the viscount; “why not? You are an 
extraordinary woman, madame. You know best, undoubt- 
edly, what you are doing; but, if I were your nephew, I 
should prefer to have another aunt. The sum, by-the-by, is 
one hundred and thirty-five thousand francs.” 

“ Write it down,” said Suzanna, “ on paper.” 

“But, madame, I have never done business with ladies. 
Appoint, I pray you, some agent ” 


THE VICOMTE'S SCRUPLES. 


287 


“ I will do so,” iiiteiTupted Siizanna ; “ but give me your 
promise on papei^ before I leave this house.” 

The vicomte had neither ink nor pens in the room. He 
never wrote anything there, and the few letters he got were 
addressed to his cafe. Suzanna tore a page out of a little 
pocket-book, and the old gentleman scribbled a few lines on 
it with a pencU. 

She went on her way, holding the scrap of paper in her 
clenched hand. 

“At last ! ” cried Jakob, sick with waiting. “ How long 
you have been! What did he say to you? What is the 
result ? ” 

“ I have been successful,” said Suzanna. “ We can go back 
to-night.” 

It was the last thing the Domine had expected. He had 
thought merely to humor her in accompanying her on this 
wildgoose chase, and the conclusion was a great blow to him. 

“ Is it true ? ” he cried. “ Is the woman reaUy to be divorced, 
and then married to Amout ? But he will refuse to do it ! It 
is wickedness ! Madness ! ” 

“Hush, Jakob! No, they will not refuse. When she is 
divorced, they will have nothing but each other. And they 
will marry. You forget that they love each other. And, i 
they do not, the guilt will be hers, not mine. I must make it 
possible for them. I can do no more. But I must do that.” 

“ You are one of God’s fanatics, Xante Suze,” said Jakob 
moodily, “ but you do the devil’s work.” 

Suzanna thought differently 5 for her whole line of argu- 
ment took its origin from the idea, as we have seen, that 
Arnout and his companion were already man and wife. 
Ai-nout had married a woman who was divorced from her 
husband, and that would have been a sin, had he known it ; 
but he had married her in the honest belief that she was a 
widow, and to marry a widow was not wrong in itself, how- 
ever unwise it might be. Suzanna felt convinced, moreover, 
that when her nephew had first entered upon this connection, 
it had been in the fervor of a youthfid passion, without any 
prior intention of making it a temporary one. In so far, then. 


288 


AN OLD JIAID’S LOVE. 


his only error had been the not awaiting a religious or civil 
sanction of his union — surely a very secondary matter, where 
moral guilt was concerned. Let him obtain such sanction as 
quickly as possible, and, whatever may have been the woman's 
guilt in the matter, his soul might be at rest. Yet even the 
woman, she now told herself, was right in considering herself 
already divorced. Only she should have remembered that a 
divorced woman may not marry again. And yet how many 
divorced women do it! Is it really forbidden? Suzanna 
found herself beginning to think more leniently of the Vicomt- 
8sse de Mongelas after the story she had heard from the 
vicomte. 

What shall we say of the poor old woman's bitter reason- 
ing, blundering on to the ruin of her own happiness and her 
nephew’s? That it is transcendental, and would lead to 
mountains of misery which we practical men avoid ? So be 
it. But when she said that the world would be a better and 
a purer place, if marriage were not the marriage service, but 
the marriage-tie, surely we must admit that she spoke the 
truth. It is impossible ! Then, so is Christianity. 

And when she did that mental sum before answering the 
vicomte, Suzanna reckoned out that the sum of one hundred 
and thirty-five thousand fi’ancs represented every penny she 
possessed in the world. 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 

THE WOaiAN’S RENUNCIATION. 

“ Jacko,” said Madame de Mongelas, lounging before the 
shaded window, with the full blaze of summer in front of her, 
“ hsten to the advice of a woman of the world. Never marry, 
unless you can do so without falling in love. And never faU 
in love, unless you can do so without any danger of marrying.” 

“ I do not understand these subtleties,” said Jacko. “Are 
there any more chocolate creams or are there not ? ” 


THE woman’s renunciation. 


289 


His eyes said it as plainly as if he had spoken. The vicomt- 
esse understood him, and, opening an exquisite httle bonbon-- 
niere of Saxony porcelain which stood at her elbow, she threw 
a couple of sweets across for him to catch. 

“ You will be ill again, as you were yesterday,” she said. 
'' But, after all, it is your business, not mine — at least, as long 
as you have the grace to get out on to the balcony in time. 
Every one must know for himself how much he can stand of 
the sweets of life. And if we get cloyed, so much the better. 
There is no man so wretched as he whose appetite outlives his 
teeth.” 

“Mine are good,” said Jacko, cracking away. 

“It seems hke yesterday,” continued the vicomtesse mus- 
ingly, “ that I put that man on the box of a fiacre and drove 
to the Fohes Bramatiques. I stHl see myself sitting there in 
the amphitheatre, and him in the pit. "What a fever of indig- 
nation I was in ! I beheve I almost loved M. de Mongelas when 
my father married me to him. It is a long time ago. And now, 
this Amout. What of him ? What do you think. Jackanapes, 
of Monsieur Amout ? ” 

Jackanapes put his wizened little hand to his heart, as he 
had been taught to do. The hand held a broken bit of bon- 
bon. 

“ You cannot get it in that way,” said his mistress, sneering 
bitterly. “ Only down your stomach. Heaii-love must come 
fi’om inside. Sweets to the sweet.” 

Jackanapes blinked his eyes, and followed her advice. 

“ Oh dear ! ” she said with a yawn, throwing back her white 
arms under the luxuriance of her haii-, “ you are only a mon- 
key, Jacko. It is the last stage of human happiness. Never, 
try to take a step beyond it into the void of originahty, for 
there you are left alone with your despair. As long as you are 
a monkey, it is all right. Singe ceux qui font precede, et ceux 
qui t’entourent. It is the only road to happiness. There is no 
road to happiness. There is nothing but the pit of happiness, 
in which sit the happy ones who are too stupid to get out.” 

At this point Jacko took it into his head to institute a search 
for imaginary fleas. 

“Ah, mais non, merci ! ” cried the vicomtesse. “After all, I 
19 


290 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


would rather be unliappy. There is a miseiy that gi’ows out 
of a frenzy of enjoyment such as the happy peox)le never know. 
Surely,” she added, after a moment, “ he might have waited a 
httle longer. Life is short 5 true, I would not deny it. But, 
none the less, the night is long enough for our dreams to last 
beyond one brief upheaval of the breast. When they are happy 
dreams. When they are happy dreams.” 

There stole such a look of sadness over her beautiful face, 
that Jacko noticed it. He carefully laid his sugar-plmn on one 
side, and then he crept up to his mistress and began softly 
stroking her cheek with his hairy little paw. 

“Jacko,” she said, as she nestled against him, “when it is 
aU over — well over — ^when the leaf is turned, you and I will re- 
main to each other, and sometimes we will talk it over, and 
we will tell each other — exactly — ^liow — it — was.” 

“And so, for the hundredth time, Amout, the sooner this 
business is ended, the better.” Mr. Doyer-Donselaar struck the 
ashes from his sempiternal cigar. “ It is ridicidous for you to 
contest my right to decide on the subject. And, really, I am 
actmg for yom* best. I am your father ; I am quite w illin g to 
acknowledge you as my son. But you must be guided by 
me in this matter, if your common sense — for the moment — 
leaves you in the lurch. TeU the lady that the complication 
has lasted quite long enough, that you are very sony, but you 
are recalled to — to Paris, or, better still — to New York, as you 
soon will be. Pay her, and be off.” 

“ Pay her ! ” said Arnout between his clenched teeth. 

“ Yes. I cannot allow a son of mine to remain indebted to 
any woman under such circumstances. I have jmt together a 
reasonable amount in this envelope. Give it her so as to set- 
tle the expenses incmTcd on your journey. Then say good- 
bye, pack yoiu* trunk, and we shall be off to-night.” He thrust 
the packet into a side-pocket of his son’s coat, who appeared 
to take no notice of it. 

“And if I refuse ? ” asked Arnout. 

“ If you refuse, I wash my hands of you. It is aU very well 
to Jiave found a son, but not if you must go amksit with him 
among the swine. I have no inclination that way, I can assure 


THE WOMAN'S RENUNCIATION. 


291 


you. I have not recognized you yet, as you are aware, so we 
are both of us still free. You must Imow what you do.” 

“ I do know,” said Amout as he walked away. 

That morning Mr. Doyer-Donselaar had met Madame de 
Mongelas on the terrace. He had never addressed her as yet ; 
he ventured to do so now.' 

“Madame,” he said, bowing politely, “that is a charming 
young man, your brother.” 

“Yes, monsieur.” 

“ It would be a great pity if anything were to happen to 
spoil his life. He seems to me to be unhappy, dissatisfied. 
One would say that he is not his own master, and yet desires 
to be.” 

“ I do not understand j’-ou, monsieur.” 

“I was only thinking that perhaps you, madame, as his 
sister, might be able to do something to restore him to that 
freedom which he undoubtedly covets, and deserves. He will 
not rest contented long, I am sure. Perhaps it were better to 
give him what he wants, before he provokes you by asking for 
it.” 

“ I know perfectly weU how to treat my own brother, mon- 
sieur.” 

“ I do not doubt it, Madame la Vicomtesse, but I was only 
wishing to suggest ” 

“ There is nothing that you need suggest, monsieur.” 

“ But, surely, I have a right to speak, or I would not have 
ventured to address you. I am his father, madame.” 

“His father? Indeed! How interesting. But I have noth- 
ing to say to his father.” 

“Yet, madame, it would seem to me ” 

“ That is my maid over yonder. Would you have the good- 
ness to caU her ? I do not like walking alone.” 

Ai-nout took Dorothy’s letter out of his pocket and read it 
over again. How often had he not read it already ? He knew 
its few lines by heart. “ There is no other way,” he said, “ and 
it is the right one. Tante Suze also is right ; I never thought 
I should have understood how right she is — in spite of all.” 


292 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


He went up to Madame de Mongelas. As he came in, the 
monkey darted forward to greet him. 

“ He has been peering over the balcony for you at an immi- 
nent risk of breaking his neck,” said the viscountess. “ You 
see, he knows we belong together, we three.” 

“ He knows many things,” answered Amout gravely, as he 
took the little beast on his arm. He is a wise monkey, and 
sees far with those restless eyes of his. I wish your life and 
mine were as simple as Jacko’s, Dorine.” 

“ Life is simple enough, Amout j it is only om* passions that 
complicate it.” 

“ I used to think that life was passion, that there was noth- 
ing else, and that all the rest was death. I have thought so 
for a bright, brief period.” 

“And now?” 

“ I do not think so now.” 

“ I pity you, Amout. That is a dream best left undreamed. 
But those who once have dreamed it should never awake 
again.” 

“And you think,” he said, “ that now I am awake ? ” 

She looked into his eyes. “ Yes,” she answered moumfuUy, 
“you are awake.” 

“ So much the better. Listen to me, Dorine. You will un- 
derstand me more easily, if you remember that I am awake. 
We have been very happy together, have we not? Faugh — la 
phrase banale ! W e have been — ^you know what I would say ? ” 

“ Yes,” she answered softly, “ I know.” 

“And of late we have sometimes quan*eUed, like foolish chil- 
di*en. Why should we quarrel, Dorine ? There is no reason 
why, that I can understand. Can you ? ” 

“ Yes,” she answered, stOl in the same subdued voice. 

“ Yes ? How do you mean ? ” 

“ I think I understand why we have sometimes quarrelled of 
late. It does not matter. Go on.” 

“ No, no. I should like to know.” 

“ There is some proverb about new wine and old bottles. I 
do not know exactly how it is, but I fancy it would prove ap- 
propriate.” 

“ Hush, hush ! That is from the Bible.” 


THE WOMAN’S RENUNCIATION. 


293 


“ Is it ? I have never read the Bible. Our priests forbid us 
to.” 

“ Dorine, I want to leave off quarrelling. I want to be as 
happy as we once were.” 

“ You will never be that, Amout. Never in the same way 
twice. Happier I hope you will be, but it will be differently.” 

“ I want to be it in the same way.” He got up from his 
chair and walked to the window, and stood looking out. “ Do- 
rine, I want never to leave you. We must always remain to- 
gether. I want you to marry me. I want you to — to be my 
wife.” 

There was a long silence. He did not dare to look round at 
her, as she lay motionless on her sofa. Jacko, grown suddenly 
nervous in the suspense, plucked him by the sleeve. He jerked 
the little animal away. Would she never speak? At last she 
spoke. 

“ That is very kind of you, Amout,” she said, and he fancied 
that her voice trembled shghtly. “More than kind. It is 
noble. It is worthy of you. It is as I might have expected of 
one to whom I have given my affection. I thank you for it 
in this moment. Will you remember in after years — ^when you 
are no longer angiy with me — ^that I sincerely thanked you for 
it ? I shall remember — I.” 

“Angry with you ? I am not angry with you,” he interposed 
almost impatiently. 

“ Yes, you are going to be angry with me soon.” 

“ I shall never be angry with you, dearest. But answer my 
question. I have waited for an answer long enough.” 

“An answer ? But yes, you shall have an answer,” she cried, 
suddenly changing her tone. “ Imagine, Jacko, that it is mon- 
sieur who now, in his turn, proposes to me that I should be- 
come his wife ! First it was our dear aunt, who — not having 
succeeded in making an angel of me — ^tried to change me into 
the next best thing, a Dutch housewife. And now it is you, 
monsieur ! And not you only. From aU sides they are bent 
on effecting my happiness.” 

“Am I to understand,” asked Amout, “ that you reject my 
offer with contumely ? ” 

“Amout, I told you I was going to make you angry. Be 


294 


AN OLD ftlAID’S LOVE. 


patient with me. I ow'e you a confession. I cannot maiTy 
you, for I am not a widow, as I told you I was. I am a wife 
already. Still a wife. My husband is ahve.” 

Suddenly it seemed to Amout as if the brOliant landscape in 
front of him sickbed over beneath a falling veil of paUid 
green. He shut his eyes to steady himself, and, in doing so, 
sank down, like one struck, into a chair. The alarmed mon- 
key ran from one to another, and peered up into their faces, 
and moaned. 

“ Is it the disappointment of his love ? ” thought Madame de 
Mongelas for one eager moment. But she knew it could not 
be that. Yet she could not have understood what it really 
was. She could not, with her so different education and ex- 
perience, have comprehended what her revelation meant to the 
Protestant lad, the disciple of Tante Suze, the quondam stu- 
dent of theology. She could not have realized how the foUy 
of his passion suddenly changed in his imagination into the 
very heinousness of blackest crime. Nor can we reason about 
these moral issues with logical sequence. It was but a few 
weeks, be it remembered, since a moment of madness had 
thrown him into the arms of Madame de Mongelas. At that 
hour he had reasoned neither of right nor of wrong. Then, as 
soon as had come the first pricks of compunction, he had told 
himself that he was bound to her, as he was only too wiUing to 
be. And no later deception had altered this his conviction that 
he owed himself, soul and body, to the woman to whom he had 
devoted his innocence. Practically, and without much relig- 
ious or plulosophic argument, but trusting simply to the in- 
stincts of his honor, he had worked out the problem of his des- 
tiny exactly as Tante Suze had done. There was nothing be- 
tween them but that terrible impulse of crime in the old 
woman’s heart. And even that he could understand better, 
since he had heard the story of her owm life from his father, 
and knew what full consciousness of horror was hers when she 
strove by one supreme, though fi’antic, effort to rescue him 
from the very edge of the abyss. 

He understood it. For he knew now that her whole life had 
been one long self-renunciation for the holiness of the cause 
she deemed herself called to defend. He had leai-ned from liis 


THE WOMAN'S RENUNCIATION. 


295 


father, how that father, not baffled by a fii'st refusal, had re- 
peatedly returned to the charge, and that she, thi-ough the suc- 
ceeding years, had ever met him with the same unvarying an- 
swer : ‘‘ What have I to do with you ? Go back to your wife.” 
And she loved the man whom she thus thrust from her. He 
coidd ^not doubt that she had loved him. How had she not 
devoted herself to Arnout Oostrum for his father’s sake ? 

He, with the light of these thoughts full upon him, had 
offered all he had to offer to Madame de Mongelas. 

And she ? “I am a married woman ah-eady,” she said. “ My 
husband is stiU ahve.” 

“ There is a wickedness, then,” he said to himself, “ from 
which there is no escape.” 

Madame de Mongelas broke a silence she could no longer 
endure. “ Hush, Jacko ! ” she said. “ Quiet ! We make noth- 
ing good, child, by moaning. It is only the monkeys who do 
that. It seems, Arnout, that my dear husband in Paris knows 
sometliing of your wishes, or forestalls them. I received a let- 
ter from my notary this morning, in which he teUs me that 
Monsiem- de Mongelas is about to bring a suit against me for 
divorce.” 

“ I can understand it,” he said suUenly, without lifting his 
eyes from the floor. 

“You?” she cried, blazing out at him. “What do you un- 
derstand? What do you know? You insult me, and that 
without reason ! Before you ventured to judge of my con- 
duct, you should at least have made the acquaintance of Mon- 
sieur de Mongelas.” 

“ I do not ” he began. 

“ Silence ! Listen to me. I am not going to speak ill of my 
husband. He is as other men. I loved him — sufficiently. 
That does not matter. They do not take it into account.- It 
is the wife’s duty, as the husband’s pleasime is to be false. 

And he — and he Go, sii’ ; I forgive you because of yoim 

ignorance. And because you, at least, think honorably, differ- 
ently. If my husband had thought as you do, Aimout, you 
would never have known Dorine de Mongelas. The hapj)ier 
for me.” She said the last words very softly. Her voice 


296 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


lingered, as it di’opped over them. Had he heard them ? She 
fancied not. 

“ No,” she said, “ we will not marry. When the first excite- 
ment was over, it would he too ridiculous. You and I, we 
have had our time. It was a good time while it lasted. But 
it is over. You would be finding out your mistake too soon. 
I fear me — do you know ? — that you have found it out already, 
before you made it. Well, so much the more beautiful of you, 
I am proud that you made it. And now we must let it pass 
over, and pass out of sight. I was just going to teU you, when 
you surprised me by your proposal, that I must start for Paris 
as soon as possible, to find out what is the meaning of this 
last freak of M. de Mongelas. I was thinking of leaving to- 
morrow morning, but I think I had perhaps better go to-night. 
This then, mon cher chevalier, had better be the last time we 
meet.” 

He started up. “ You desert me ! ” he cried, “ You leave 
me to myself. To my loneliness. You have robbed me of 
everything I possessed. And now you leave me — naked and 
alone.” 

Donne smiled. “Always tragic ! ” she said. “ It is in the 
blood. I leave you to a new-found father — ah, you see that I 
know — who appears to be very wealthy, and to loving friends 
who will welcome the prodigal’s return. I, now — if you ask 

to what I return But let us rather speak of matters of 

interest. It is always a sad tiling to say good-bye. And now 
I want you, Arnout, to say good-bye very tenderly to me. For 
the futm’e — what is it but a recollection? The past was a 
hope.” 

“ I cannot say good-bye,” said Arnout fiercely. 

“ Yes, you can. For it is the last thing left to say. Good- 
bye, Arnout.” And she held out her hand. 

“It is true, then?” he cried, as if suddenly awakening. 
“ This is a farewell. You dismiss me from your presence, from 
your life, from your heart? You bid me go — and for good? 
You are tired of me, and you wish to return to the noble, your 
husband? It is your answer, madame, to the offer of my 
whole existence, which I made you a few moments ago ? I 
thank you for the answer.” 


THE WOMAN’S RENUNCIATION, 


297 


“ Yes, Amout, some day you will thank me for the answer. 
And now let us part friends. Farewell ! ” 

“At least,” he said hastily, “before we separate for ever, you 
must allow me, madame, to regulate our business connections.” 
He drew from his pocket the envelope hi's father had placed 
there. “ You have been so kind,” he went on gravely, and with- 
out a shade of a sneer in his voice, “ to make me considerable 
advances of money to meet the expenses of our trip. You 
wiU allow me, before you dismiss me, to reimburse them, ma- 
dame.” And he laid the packet down on the table. 

She grew white to the hps. “ You brought this with you ? ” 
she stammered, “ When you came up to me ? I cannot un- 
derstand.” 

“ No,” he retorted hastily. “ It is an accident, I had the 
sum ready. I had just received it. I have long desired — I 
have always expected to return it,” 

Madame de Mongelas slowly took the paper in her hands. 
She opened it, and drew out the bundle of bank-notes it con- 
tained. 

“ The American’s money ! ” she said scornfully. She scanned 
them carelessly, “ It is not even enough,” she said with yet 
more withering scorn. 

In his trouble Amout mistook her meaning. “I deeply 
regret it,” he said, “ and if you will only mention any sum 
you require ” 

She lifted her eyes to his face, and, for the first time, then- 
glances met. He stopped. A beautiful crimson mantled over 
her proud face and neck. 

“Here,” she said, “ Jacko ! ” 

And with an imperial movement of disdain, she fiung the 
bank-notes — in a fluttering bundle — to the ape. 

With a screech of dehght the little monster sprang upon 
them. For tearmg up tissue-paper was a favorite amusement 
of his. He jumped out on to the balcony with his precious 
burden. 

Amout stood by the great window, straight and stiU, evep^ 
nerve in tension with the effort to keep cahn, too proud to lift 
a saving hand, yet not trusting himself even to stir a finger 
in the yearning to prevent the cruel waste before his eyes. 


298 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


Hanging out on the parapet, against the wide sparkle of lake 
and sky, in the glowing golden sunlight, the little grey monkey 
sat coolly tearing up, one by one, the heap of papers he held 
between his knees, and casting their fragments to the winds. 
They fluttered for a moment, and then feU, one by one, among, 
the bushes, in the basins of the fountains by the terrace down 
below, here and there, right and left. Madame de Mongelas 
lay back upon her sofa, playing listlessly with the glistening 
jet upon her dress, her eyes flxed immovably on Arnout’s face. 

She waited till the last scrap had sailed out of sight and 
Jacko was hunting for more. Then she said; ‘‘Go. It is 
enough.” 

He moved towards the door, “ No,” he said*} “ let us not ' 
part thus, Dorine. If I have wronged you, it was not inten- 
tionally. Forgive me whatever you have to forgive.” 

“ I win try to,” she said proudly. 

“ I said just now that I was awake. But since then so much 
has happened. Perhaps I am not awake. I shall understand 
when that time comes.” 

“ Oh, yes,” she said, “ you are awake. Perhaps, Amout, if 

you had still been dreaming Good-bye. And, if I may 

say it, God bless you. Good-bye.” 

“ Good-bye,” he said, and closed the door. 

She sprang after him, as he did so, with an almost involun- 
tary movement, and bending forward, stood listening to hrs re- 
treating steps. She stood thus for several minutes, after those 
steps had died away in the distance, and then, suddenly, she 
sank down — the graceful, haughty woman — in an attitude of 
utter abandonment by the door, and, covering her face with 
her hands, she wept as she had never wept before, except on 
that terrible evening when she had taken her husband’s valet 
to see a screaming farce at the Folies Dramatiques. The little 
monkey threw his arms round her neck, and strove to draw the 
fingers from her eyes and peep into them, but she would not 
let him. She pushed him away, again and again, so roughly 
that he at length retired into a corner and crouched there, 
watching her intently, his face puckered up into a sob. 

After several moments, however, she recovered herself in so 


AND THE MAN’S. 


299 


far that she could push back the hair from her brow. She 
looked across at Jacko. “You are all that is left of it,” she 
said. “Come here.” 


CHAPTER XL. 

AND THE MAN’S. 

When Amout had sufficiently recovered himself, he went 
back to his father. 

He could not, as yet, understand the experience he had just 
passed through. With the horror of her confession still fresh 
upon him, he recoiled from the woman whom he had adored 
throughout a brief fever of enjoyment, but he was angry with 
her, none the less, for what he considered her desertion. She 
was tired of him ; she was going back to Paris, glad, probably, 
of this valid excuse of her lawsuit. And he? — ^heroically 
sacrificing all his hopes and his aspirations, he had flung every- 
thing he possessed at her feet. And she spumed away the 
treasure with a trip of the toe. 

“ So she is to leave for Paris to-night,” said his father com- 
placently. “ Well, well, it could not be better, all things con- 
sidered. I am no enemy of diversion, as I have repeatedly as- 
sured you. You will not find in me a stem, implacable parent, 
who has never been a young man himself. No, no j youth must 
have its fling — I know that. Sow its wild oats, and so on. No, 
not ‘sow on’ — eh? He, he! That was very good. There 
comes a time for leaving off. And you mustn’t make yoim f im- 
rows too deep, or you’ll never get rid of them. They’ll come 
out on your forehead. You were very near making a fool of 
yourself with that woman, Amout. You really must forgive 
my saying so. And you may consider yourself lucky that I 
turned up when I did. Well, you’re out of it now, and I con- 
gratulate you. Take a bit of advice from a man that has seen 
the world. Love long, and far and wide — but don’t love too 
deep.” 


300 


AN OLD JIAID’S LOVE. 


‘‘ I think, sir,” said Amont stiffly, “ that as the matter is now 
settled, we might more agreeably talk of something else.” 

“ I am most w illin g to do so,” said Mr. van Donselaar pleas- 
antly. “ I should suggest that we also quit this place as soon 
as convenient, and that we go — not to Paris j well, well, never 
mind — but to Rome. It was my intention, had I found you 
in Holland and thought you a suitable companion, to propose 
that we should undertake a journey through Europe together. 
There is nothing that forms a man so much — unless it be a lit- 
tle escapade like yours. The only difference now is, that you 
started before me, and that I have had to catch you up. We 
might go down into Italy, and then try Egypt and the Pyra- 
mids, coming back by the Holy Land and Constantinople. I 
should like to see ‘ Jedoodledum.’ Wonderful soil for raising 
stoclc. Only place in the whole world, I fancy, that ever licked 
New York in the manufacture of business men ! ” 

Arnout did not answer. Here, certainly, was an escape 
offered to him, beyond his wildest dreams — an escape from 
himself, and aU the misery of his surroundings. To travel 
had always been one of his fondest aspirations, the fonder, per- 
haps, because unattainable, as they know who have dined for 
five successive months at the same table dlwte. And now the 
full delight of the most splendid of all journeys was opened up 
to him, in a panorama of expectation before his dazzled eyes. 
He almost forgot for a moment the dark valley, through which 
he had just descended. The clouds broke apart, as the dark- 
est clouds are apt to do most suddenly, and the sunlight of 
new hope poured in upon his soul. Rome — Jerusalem — Con- 
stantinople. Each word called up a new phantasmagoria of 
the purest, the most beautiful pleasures, untroubled fruition 
such as he had never experienced yet. He felt that life was 
not aU done for him, as he had fancied ten minutes ago. No ; 
on the contrary, it was only just beginning. It was about to 
mu'oU itseK before liim, in aU its variegated delights. It was 
his world, that had been so little. The great world was wide, 
and full of capabihties, and beautiful stOl. And the whole de- 
liciousness of wealth was borne in upon his mind. 

“ Yes,” said his father. “ I hke you. I am sure we shall get 
on well together. And I am pleased with you for the prompt 


AND THE JIAN’S. 


301 


manner in which you have put a stop to this little romance, as 
soon as I pointed out to you thht it was working round into a 
tragedy. It shows that you are not a duffer, Arnout. There’s 
many a young fellow has seen more of the world that would 
not have extricated himself so well. You start with your brains 
in the right place, but you must develop them by experience, 
and you’U have need of them, if you’re to be my heir. There’s 
no mau requires to be so wide awake as a rich one, especially 
in our part of the world. The poor man, if he goes to sleep, 
risks possible gain, but the rich one, if he does it, risks posi- 
tive loss. AH the same, best be wide awake, any way. I 
shouldn’t have been a rich man now, if I hadn’t looked out 
shai-p, when the moment came. And how do you hike the idea, 
Arnout, you pauper, of being heir to a big lump of money aU 
of a sudden ? Don’t it seem like a fairy tale ? ” 

“I Like it, of course,” said Aimout. “How should I not 
do so ? It would not be in flesh and blood to prefer being 
poor.” 

“No, I should think not. That’s all rot about the pleasm-es 
of poverty — 

‘ Make me contented with my lot, 

Whate’er I’ve got or haven’t got.’ 

It doesn’t do in the nineteenth century, whatever they may 
have thought out in Palestine, where I suppose a fellow don’t 
want any clothing and can feel comfortable on an ohve a day. 
Now, ohves give me an appetite. And as for Diogenes, it’s all 
very beautiful, but give me a Dutchman. Our fathers found 
out long ago, that the only kind of ton* to make a man 
thoroughly comfortable is the kind they manufacture in Hol- 
land, my boy.” 

“It takes a long time to produce them in Holland. Are 
they made more quickly in America, sii* ? ” 

“ That depends. A sharp man makes them quickly — some- 
times. And a duU man never makes them at all. Now, in 
Holland, any fool can get rich by just sticking on in his father’s 
shoes. Down west, where I made my money, most people’s 
fathers had no shoes for ’em to stick in.” 

* “Ton,” similar to the English “plum” but in much more general 
use, is a Dutch expression for a hundred thousand guilders. 


302 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


“ The experiences must be interesting,-’ said Arnont indiffer- 
ently. 

“ I believe you.” Mr. van Donselaar crossed and imcrossed 
his legs, and stretched himself out comfortably. “Yes, my 
son, I could tell you some rum stories, if I chose. I think 
you’d find your old father knows what’s what. The man must 
get up early that wants to take me in.” 

“ I do not doubt it,” said Amout. His indifference stung 
the old gentleman to talk on. He would show the boy what 
mettle he was made of, that he was not a personage to be 
slighted like this. 

“ Yes, indeed,” he said. “ Now, many a man would not have 
availed himself of my opportunity even when it offered. Had 
I not done so, I should have been poor to this day. Some 
people would have called it a fluke. It just depends often 
whether you have the sense to open your mouth for manna 
where others see merely rain. And we reap a better crop, as 
a nde, off the stupidity of other people’s brains than off the 
cleverness of our own. Now, my manna was a stretch of land 
that looked just like other land ; only, there might have been 
gold in it, you see.” 

“And was there ? ” asked Arnont, watcliing a bird. 

The old gentleman winked, and looked wonderfully know- 
ing. He blew a long, fragrant cloud of smoke into the air. 
And then he said: “There may have been, and there may 
not have been. That question remains to be answered to tliis 
day.” 

“ But then how did you make so much money by it ? ” asked 
Amout, suddenly observant. 

“ By not looking for the gold,” answered Donselaar triumph- 
antly. “It is certain that somebody who peered into the 
ground, when he had no business to, and when it still be- 
longed to me, came across some bits of ore, and if that some- 
body bought the ground from me, it was his business to know 
why.” 

“ How interesting ! ” said Amout, sitting up. “ I wish you 
would teU me all about it.” 

“ There is not much to teU, boy. As I said to you, the land 
was mine, and I didn’t quite know what to do with it. I had 


AND THE MAN’S. 


30 :{ 

won it, if you \vant the exact pai-tieulars, at a chance game of 
euchre in a railway-car. Gold-prospecting costs a lot of money, 
as you may have heard, and I hadn’t any money to sink in 
shafts. So I waited and Gay low,’ as they say nowadays. 
A lot of fellows were loafing round, looking for gold, and some 
of them came my way and pottered about my bit of property. 
Well, I watched them, and said nothing, and one day one of 
tliem came to me and offered me a good bit of money for my 
land. He wanted it for sheep-pasture, he told me. I said it 
would do excellently for sheep-pasture, and he could have it, 
if he gave me double the sum he proposed. ‘ Done,’ says he 
hke a flash. ‘ Done ’ he was.” 

“ That is extraordinary,” said Arnout. “ What made him 
pay so heavy a price ? ” 

‘‘WeU — as I tell you — ^he had found gold here and there, 
when he came fooling around. It wasn’t any business of mine 
whether he would find more. You don’t want gold for sheep- 
pastures.” 

But if you knew there was gold ? ” 

“ But if I knew nothing about it ? I knew there was gold 
where he looked. No one better than I.” 

“ I understand,” said Arnout, still extremely interested. “ It 
is ceidainly very clever. You knew that it was where he looked 
for it, because you had put it there.” 

“ He had no business to come looking for it, wherever it 
might happen to be. And if he did not find any more, after 
the land became his, what did that matter ? He had bought it 
for sheep-pastui'es, you see,” 

“ I see. It is very clever,” said Arnout thoughtfully. 

“All, you have to be clever in that part of the countiy. 
There’s no alternative but falling into another man’s pit or 
digging one yoimseK. As to falling into yoiu- own pit, you 
don’t catch ’em doing that in a huiTy.” 

“ It is very clever,” said Arnout abstractedly. “And that 
was the starting-point of aU your good fortune, you say?” 

“ Naturally. It was only the original capital that I had been 
waiting for. Once supply me with that, and you could trust 
me to increase it,” 

Another long pause ensued. Such pauses were common be- 


304 


AN OLD MAID'S LOVE. 


tween them. At last Arnout said gravely : “ I hope, sii-, that 
the original game of cards was fair.” 

Mr. van Donselaar laughed heartily — perhaps a little too 
heartily. “ Very good,” he said, “ very funny ! Oh no, I can 
make my conscience easy on that score. I have earned my 
money fairly enough ; few men with as large a fortune could 
say as much. Not that I am wealthy from an American point 
of view, but I should do for Holland. Oh yes, undoubtedly, 
I shoidd do for Holland. And so I think my brother Dieder- 
ick will say, when we get together and have a talk about his 
Dorothy and you. Yes, though I don’t know her, and though 
it seems to be a subject you avoid, I’ve set my heart, I don’t 
know why, upon its being Dorothy.” 

Again there was a silence, and then Amout got up and said : 
“ I tbink^ it you Will allow me, I will go in. Good-afternoon.” 

“All right. Do as you like. Ta, ta ! But when shall I see 
you again ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” answered Amout, walking rapidly away. 

“And we are to decide about leaving either to-night or to- 
morrow, en route for Rome ! ” 

“ Oh, better leave to-night,” said Amout, and turned into 
the hotel door. , 

He had three napoleons in his pocket, so much he knew. 
These coins and his simple gold watch were aU the valuables 
he possessed. How far would they take him on the way back 
to Holland ? 

He must get back to his own country, to a land of honor- 
able men and good women. He must find honest work for his 
hands to do. He must escape, at all cost, from the world in 
which he had lost himself, a world where men’s loves deserted 
them, and men’s fathers turned out swindlers who owed aU 
their fortune to a lie. He must go home. Had he no longer 
a home to go to ? He must find Tante Suze, and explain him- 
self to her, and entreat her to explain herseK to him. All 
would be clear, if there could but be an explanation — ^if he 
could but get back out of the world where things were topsy- 
turvy, into a world he imderstood. 

He went up into his room and wrote a long and clumsy let- 


AND THE JIAN’S. 


305 


ter to his father, in which he explained that he could not ac- 
cept the sonship which had been offered him, and fiu*thermore 
expressed a regret that he had incurred a debt which he would 
strive to repay. There had been three thousand fi-ancs in the 
envelope which Arnout had passed on to Madame de Monge- 
las. A large sum, and not to be refunded in a hurry, however 
pleasant it might seem to be able to do so. Arnout took a 
considerable time over his letter, and then he went down-stairs 
and looked for the director. He had made friends with the 
director of the hotel, a refined and kind-hearted iudividual, 
and he had frequently had a chat with him in his ofiice or out 
on the terrace. Perhaps the director could help him. He 
could not do better than try. 

Monsieur,” he said, “ I am in a bad dilemma. You must 
extricate me. I have had — to be frank with you — a tiff -with 
my sister, who is going back to Paris without me. I want to 
get to Cologne, but I have spent my own money, and I could 
not think, under the circumstances, of appealing to her. I 
thought perhaps that you might know of somebody who was 
in need of a travelling companion of some sort — some invalid 
or something, I don’t rightly know myself — who would take 
me a good piece of the way for such services as I could give 
in return.” 

“ My dear sir,” answered the director, “ borrow a small sum 
from me, and repay it when you can.” 

He was sorry to lose his guests, but he fancied he under- 
stood all about Arnout, and he felt anxious to come to his re- 
lief. 

‘‘No, no,” said Arnout, reddening. “You are very good. 

And I am obliged to you. But I want you to think, or in- 
quire — is there anything of the kind, do you know ? ” 

“As it happens,” replied the director, “I heard from my 
uncle at Menaggio the other day, that there was a young Ger- 
man gentleman there, who is very iU and who was desirous of 
finding somebody to travel with. It was only to Frankfort, 
but that, perhaps, would be sufficient for what you require ? ” ♦ 

“Yes, yes,” said Arnout hastily. “Do you think he would 
have me ? ” 

“ It is more than a week ago. Perhaps he is long gone. 

20 


306 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


But if he is not, and if he has waited all this time in vain, he 
might prefer taking your journey upon him to incurring con- 
tinued expense at the hotel. Shall I telegraph : ‘ Companion 
offers, if expenses paid ? ’ It can do no hairni to try.” 

“ Yes, do so, if you please,” said Arnout, striving to be cahn. 
“When can I have the answer?” 

“ In an hour or two.” 

“ That will do capitally. You are awfully good. I am very 
much obliged to you, monsieur.” 

“ Ce n’est pas la peine, monsieur. If only the man be not 
gone ! ” 

Arnout, slipping out of the office and intending to creep up- 
stairs again, ran straight against his father. 

“ Hullo ! ” cried the old gentleman, “ where are you coming 
to ? Now, look sharp, Arnout. We shall have to decide about 
this departure of ours. When is it to take place ? ” 

Arnout bethought him of his letter, carefully written. He 
had it in his pocket. Should he take it out, hand it over, and 
fly ? After aU, it was manlier to settle the matter by word of 
mouth than to wiite a long vindication and run away. 

“ Let me answer you, sir, immediately,” he said, as he drew 
his father into the empty reading-room. “ My departure will 
be as soon as possible, but I think we had better not go to- 
gether. In fact, after what you have told me this afternoon 
about the means by which you have possessed yourself of your 
fortune, I have resolved not to accept the proposal you have 
made me. It is not for me to express an opinion on the sub- 
ject, but I would rather go away.” 

“But, Arnout,” cried Mr. van Donselaar, visibly excited, 
“ you have misunderstood me. It is absurd. It is impossible. 
Don’t you see that I never told the man there was gold? 
And that I was not responsible for his attempt to outwit me ? 
I treated him fairly enough, and if his little scheme did not 
succeed, it was merely a case of the biter bit. I had an excep- 
tional fool to deal with, to teU the truth, or the whole thing 
would have fallen through on bothrsides.” 

“You put the gold there,” said Arnout firmly. “Don’t, 
pray, let us discuss it. I dare say, from your point of view, 
you were quite right. But I fear we should never agree. I 


AND THE MAN’S. 


307 


am obliged to you for your kindness. Perhaps I have been 
too long without a father, and I dare say you have been too 
long without a son. It would be no use beginning, only to 
draw back in a few months.” 

“We might try, Aniout,” said Donselaar, softly. 

“ No, no ; it would be no use.” 

“ Do you mean that this is really your decision ? That for 
some stupid freak of boyish conceit (for it is conceit) you are 
going to give up a fortune of twenty thousand dollars a year ? ” 

“Yes, sir,” said Amout. 

But old Mr. van Donselaar would not so soon give up his 
newly found son. He drew him into the embrasure of a win- 
dow and reasoned with him, pointing out the advantage of 
wealth and the discomforts of poverty. And he showed him 
how legitimate, from a business point of view, was the ma- 
noeuvre by which the land had been sold. He was very pa- 
tient and very plausible. Amout listened intently. It was a 
hard stmggle for the young fellow. 

“ I do not deny,” he reiterated, “ that you may do as you 
wiU. But let me do as I prefer, also. And, sir, I prefer 
not to touch this money. I am sincerely sorry it should 
be so, but I cannot help it. Discussions are useless. Let 
me go.” 

“ Then I am really to understand that this is a final decis- 
ion ? You are going away ? ” 

“ I am going away.” 

“And where to, if I may inquire — to Rome alone ? Or is 
there another Madame de Mongelas ? ” 

“ I am going back home, sir — alone.” 

“ D — n you ! ” cried Donselaar, his fury breaking loose. 
“ Go. And where is the money I gave you a few hours ago ? 
Is that to pay for your trip ? ” 

Arnout drew out his pocket-book and produced the letter he 
had written. He tore it open, and extracting a loose scrap of 
paper, laid it before Mr. van DonselaaPs astonished, but indig- 
nant eyes. It was an I. O. U. 

“ The money is gone,” he said. “ I am very sorry for it. I 
cannot repay you, but I shall do so as soon as ever I possibly 
can,” 


808 


AN OLD ]\IAID’S LOVE. 


The pseudo- American took the paper and cai’efully hid it 
away in his breast-pocket. He smiled an ugly smile. 

“We shall see/’ he said. “We must hope so. But I fear 
that this little amusement of son-hunting will prove to have 
cost me three thousand francs.” 

“ No,” answered Amout moodily. “ I do not think so. But 
I cannot repay you before — ^before I can. Some day, be sure, 
you will have your money. Have patience until then. You 
can count interest, if you like.” 

“ Thank you,” said his father. “ You are very good.” 

At this moment the director came in with the answer to his 
telegram. He had received it sooner than he had expected. 
He held it out towards Arnout. 

“ If he can come immediately, good.” 

Arnout laid the telegram before his father. “There, sir, 
you have my final decision. I have nothing to add to it, but 
farewell.” 

“.Boy ! ” cried Mynheer van Donselaar, starting up. “ Boy, 
you are mad ! Consider your own future ! You are mad ! 
It is impossible ! ” But Amout had slipped away. 

“And what, then, is the use of aU my money ? ” said Van 
Donselaar, clenching his fists before him on the table and star- 
ing down at the I. O. U. with “Arnout Oostmm ” sprawling 
across the paper. He sat motionless for some time, staring 
thus in front of him. And then he sighed heavily. “ D — ^n 
the money ! ” he said. 


CHAPTER XLI. 

THE PRODIGAL’S RETURN. 

Arnout travelled back to Frankfort in attendance on his in- 
valid, and there left him. They were not sorry to part. It 
had scarcely been a pleasant journey. The German was very 
fil, and his iUness had by no means improved the natural acerb- 
ity of his temper. He was one of those who instinctively 


THE PRODIGAL’S RETURN. 


300 


separate the whole human race into the two classes of superiors 
and inferiors, the people to whom you must be polite and the 
people who must be polite to you. And so he unconsciously 
assumed towards every individual with whom he came in con- 
tact the attitude of bully or bullied one. His whole life had 
dwindled down iuto an hereditary conjugation of the verb “ to 
bully” in all its active and passive forms. He was an officer. 
And as he paid Arnout’s ticket, and as, moreover, Arnout rep- 
resented that object of envious contempt to every well-regu- 
lated German mind, a “ Dutch bloater,” he hectored him as 
much as the young Hollander would allow. 

And Aniout proved unexpectedly meek. The German 
thought that it was because he was afraid of him, and we 
need not grudge the sick man this illusion, for it made him 
supremely happy. But Amout, never having been in a menial 
position before, felt unable properly to regulate the degrees of 
proportion between enduring a man’s insolent affability and 
pitching him out of the window. And he imagined, for so he 
had always been told in a country where the Germans are both 
feared and despised, that aU Prussian officers were inevitably 
unendurable. A mistake ; for when they have passed the age of 
thirty, they often develop into most charming men, even though 
they never quite appreciate in political discussions those ideas 
of mine and thine, of right and might, which are nowadays 
generally accepted, at least in theory, among most civilized 
communities. It is too much, perhaps, to expect that from a 
successful military autocrat in an age of land-grabbing. But 
Amout may be easily forgiven his one-sidedness, for his knowl- 
edge of these matters was principally derived from a frequent 
pemsal of the Fliegende Blatter, the South German comic paper, 
which brings week after week, hidden away under the form of 
comedy, a tale of military cmelty and oppression, enough to 
make every mother in Christendom weep tears of blood. At 
least, so it read to Arnout ; but, then, we must not forget that 
Arnout came of a nation which has long been impatient of all 
authority, and which considers even the preservation of order 
and security in the public streets an oppression not to be en- 
dured. 

Unable, then, to establish a proper limit, he calmly put up 


310 


AN OLD maid’s LOVE, 


with his “employer’s” impertinences, and remembered that 
railway trains travel fast. And he was in no mood for further 
conflicts of any kind. He desired nothing more, for the mo- 
ment, than repose, to fly back from all things surrounding 
him, into himself, that in the loneliness now fast forming 
around him he might And his own heart again. He was an- 
gry — angry with Madame de Mongelas, angry with his father, 
angry with Dorothy, angry even with Tante Suze, though here 
his anger was fast breaking up into a yearning for reconcilia- 
tion in their mutual guilt. But, above all things, he was an- 
gry with himself, and the terror and disgust which the knowl- 
edge of his mistress’s secret had brought upon him still held 
him as in a vise. He loathed himself and the deed he had 
done, but it was wdth scornful, bitter loathing, rather than re- 
pentance. He was angry with himself for being angry. He 
did not want to be it, neither as regarded the others nor as re- 
garded himself. The world was out of joint, and what was he 
to set it right ? And yet, what was he, either, to break the 
laws of Heaven and earth ? He must get back, back on to the 
rails, if possible. He sat in the train, staring out into the 
swiftly shifting landscape with hard and hopeless eyes. What 
did it matter to him if the German grumbled because he had 
not arranged the cushions aright? 

And, then, gradually, softer thoughts came over him. They 
came with the constant memory of Dorothy, the cruel maiden 
who had driven him to his ruin. He had ever loved to think 
so, and yet the idea would not let him rest. Was it true 
that she had really been to blame? We are always willin g to 
hold others responsible for our sorrows — it is pleasant ; but 
can we truthfully convince ourselves that they sin in our sins ? 
And Jakob te Bakel’s words in the Cologne Cathedral echoed 
once more through the deepest recesses of his heart: “She 
loves you, and you have deserted her.” They had never been 
completely silenced since that day when first they were spoken. 

He must get back on to the rails again. But how? Time 
must show him, and he must try to understand. AH these 
difficulties and distractions, these wrongs and rights, were too 
puzzhng and irritating, like a tangled skein. Best get away 
from the unusual, escape into the every-day. 


THE PRODIGAL’S RETURN. 


811 


The career in the Church, which was to have been his, was 
now closed to him. Concerning that, he was resolved. He 
did not doubt that people would condone his fault, describe it 
as a boyish infatuation, advise him to live it down, and to pre- 
pare for a life of usefulness in the ministry. But he would not 
listen to them ; no, not for a moment. His mind was made up. 
His own horror of himself was too vivid to allow him to hesi- 
tate. Long enough had he lived a he. And whatever change 
the future might bring in his convictions, to become a teacher 
of the Gospel, a pattern and a testimony — no. 

He must try to obtain a situation as a clerk in Amsterdam. 
The idea was unpalatable to him, but he embraced it with en- 
ergy. In his talks with his father he had felt that he might 
perhaps develop a certain aptitude for business, for honest 
business, manly business, the hard-working strain to make fair 
profit, and to make it frequently. It was all very vague as yet, 
but he would try, and see what came of it. He was too old to 
begin 5 well, he must not rest content to be backward longer 
than necessary. He saw himseK, in his imagination, tied 
down to a desk, day after day, from morning to night, scrib- 
bling figures. The prospect was not very inviting, but he ac- 
cepted it. For one resolution rose paramoimt in his mind over 
all other thoughts. He must never be dependent on Tante 
Suze again. Never, never on any one. He must earn his 
own bread. Ajid he must repay the debt he had contracted 
towards his father. His cheeks burned as he recalled the benefi- 
cence of Madame de Mongelas. 

His thoughts of the future were very sombre ones. He did 
not much mind their being sombre. It would be too much to 
say that he revelled in it, but he accepted the fact with a grave 
sense of the fitness of things. 

Ah, well, we are strange discords, and the ground-tone is al- 
ways self. 

Had he been more presumptuous and seen clearer, he might 
perhaps have discerned, in the gloom of things that are, a great 
house in the coffee-trade, left under the guidance of an old 
man, wearying for his rest in the country, and of a young fellow 
who plays the violin too well for an office desk — and, in the 
brightness of things to be, a modest post in that house for a 


312 


AK OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


man able and eager to work his way upwards, to whom the 
old chief of the firm has said : “ When you gave up' that for- 
tune acquired by falsehood you did a great and noble thing, 
a thing which every true man of business would dehght in, 
and for which I, whose every penny was honestly got at, honor 
and love you. But we cannot have what we let go. The 
years alone slowly bring expiation, and when you earn enough 
by your own exertions ” 

The dream fades away, even as we dream it, and Arnout, 
looking out into the awakening morning, sees himself with in- 
dustrious eyes, and brow on which sorrow has left its mark, 
at work at his office-desk. 

He reached the little Wyk station late in the evening ; he 
had purposely timed himself so as to avoid the teU-tale light 
of day. He was almost penniless. His money had barely 
sufficed to bring him on from Frankfort third-class. 

He shpped from the carriage and, avoiding, as well as he 
could, the few lights of the station, he hmTied away dovm the 
deserted road. It was not that he was full of false shame 5 he 
would be willing, when the time came, though scarcely with- 
out that shrinking which is only natural, to confess his guilt 
before men ; but first, and before all things, he must get back 
home, get into the old surroundings, and if he could only be- 
come his old seK again, then, surely, he would understand. 

As if we could ever do so ! As if Amout Oostrum, of all 
men, would ever be his old self again ! 

His heart leaped with a strange medley of feeling at the 
thought that in a few moments he woidd once more stand face 
to face with Tante Suze. Between them would lie, like a bar- 
rier, the constant thought of her crime and of his. Both had 
explanations — ay, and expiations — enough to fall back upon, 
but, even if these sufficed for the other, they would not suffice 
for the one who could appeal to them. How would they meet ? 
And what could he say to the woman who had loved him with 
such an all-absorbing love, and who, like him, had erred, and 
en’ed in vain ? He coidd find no answer to the question, how- 
ever often he pondered it. Yet he felt that he must get back 
.to her. The sooner, the better. And he hurried down the lane. 


THE PRODIGAL’S RETURN. 


313 


He turned the corner, by the jasmine-bushes, from whence, 
by dayhght, you could discern the house. It was too dark now 
to do so — a soft, stUl darkness, without wind or stars, the very 
melancholy of night, lay lightly bn the trees. He ran forward 
now, borne onward by the tempest of his own uncertainty. 
The next moment lay before him as a vast black question, the 
answer to which would embrace, so it seemed to him, in a sud- 
den clearness, both the future and the past. He ran onward. 
Then, in the darkness, the white shape of the house became 
vaguely visible. And he stopped, when he saw it, smitten with 
a sudden hesitation, a nameless dread. A foohsh inchnation 
came over him to run back — to the other end of the world — 
never to come near the place again. And then he conquered, 
with an effort, what was left in him of false assumption and 
walked on with firm tread to the gate. 

The little cottage was dark. He tried the latch, but it would 
not work. The gate was locked. He looked up at the forlorn 
windows in amazement j never, as long as he could remember, 
through the fifteen years they had lived together, had his aunt 
spent a night out of the house. Yet now, surely, she must be 
away. He shook the inoffensive gate repeatedly, in his anxiety 
and his disappointment. For he suddenly realized, with aU the 
vehemence of failure, how his whole nature had been strung 
up for this meeting. He could not bear the recoil now that 
the tension was unexpectedly relaxed. He stumbled miserably 
along the neat box-hedge in the darkness, and Hfted Ms eyes 
from time to time towards the dark line of the building, and 
Vvondered. 

The window of Ms own httle room shone out, curtainless, 
with a black shimmer in its glass like that of deep water undei* 
a lowering sky. The house looked down upon him, as if big 
with a secret it was striving to teU. And the night was soft 
and stM. 

And then he saw, what he had not seen till now : a board 
stuck upon a pole in the middle of the central geramum-bed 
which adorned the garden-plot. 

He could not make out what was wiitten upon it ; and yet 
only one thing, he felt, could be written up thus. He jumped 
over the low gate and ran to the post. He drew matches from 


314 


AN OLD MAID’S LO\^. 


his pocket, and, striking a light, he read by its momentary 
flash the words he expected yet dreaded to find — 

“To BE Let or Sold.” 

He dropped the match from his hand, and it seemed to him 
as if, in the darkness, he were standing by an open grave. 


CHAPTER XLII. 

THE FATTED CALF. 

It was many minutes before Amout roused himself to turn 
away. Then he shook himself, like a dog awakening from 
sleep, and crept back to the gate, and slowly climbed over it. 

During all those minutes a figure on the other side of the 
road, under the shadow of the trees, had stood watching him 
with quiet expectation. And as he let himself down on the 
other side of the gate, Jakob te Bakel stepped forward and 
laid a hand on his arm. 

“Amout,” he said, “ she isn’t dead. You may thank God 
she is not. Come home with me, and I will tell you all about 
it.” 

Arnout suffered the other to lead liim down the lane towards 
the parsonage. They walked on in unbroken silence except 
for one interchange of rapid question and answer. 

“ Is she iU ? ” said Arnout. 

“No,” answered Jakob, “ she is not ill.” 

Arnout did not speak again till they reached the parsonage 
door, but then, as Jakob, limped aside to let him pass, he 
stopped. 

“ I will come with you,” he said, “ but not if you preach to 
me, against your own conviction. You may reproach me as 
much as you like, Jakob, but it must be Jakob te Bakel who 
speaks, and not the Doming. Don’t think me unkind, Jakob, 
but I can’t listen to set phrases. Not to-night. I am unrea- 
sonable. But I am trying to understand.” 


THE FATTED CALF. 


315 


‘‘I shall not preach to you,” said Jakob sternly; “come 
with me.” And they went in. 

He made the wanderer as comfortable as he could, mate- 
rially, but there was a reserve in his manner which struck a 
chill to Arnout’s heart. The minister could not forgive his 
former friend immediately, and be kind to him and take him 
to his heart as if nothing had happened. Something had 
happened. It was impossible to ignore it. It would be rep- 
rehensible to do so. The women would probably make enough 
of the prodigal, and pet him, and feast him. Women always 
dearly enjoy a sinner, even when he is penitent. But he, the 
parson, was not going to give way to any such false sensi- 
bility. Men are made of robuster impressions, and their feel- 
ings can outlive many a change of front. Iniquity was 
iniquity, and must not be called virtue because we happened 
to find it in a repentant soul. Better than speak such false- 
hood, keep silence and go your way. And Jakob, whose heart 
was overflowing with pity for the prodigal, fastened down 
his face into severe lines of what he thought was neutrality, 
and set bread and meat before him without a word. 

But Amout pushed them away. “ TeU me,” he said, “ what 
has happened to her ? ” 

And Jakob told him the stoiy of their journey to Paris. 

“And so,” he concluded, “when we came back, the first 
thing that she did was to look for a situation as housekeeper. 
She has found one — in Amsterdam. She prefen-ed Amster- 
dam, so as to be near Dorothy ; for false pride she has none. 
It is evident, of course, though she refuses to answer any 
questions, that she has sacrificed what money she had to the 
Vicomte de Mongelas to obtain what she calls yom* soul’s sal- 
vation. It is a madness, and I have ceaselessly told her so ; 
but it is one of those madnesses wliich make the angels weep, 
even more than they cause devils to grin.” 

Amout had sat silent under the torture which the other was 
inflicting, neither by*preference nor unwillingly, but as men 
do remorselessly what cannot be left undone. After some 
moments he said — 

“And Miss van Donselaar — did I understand you to say she 
was in Amsterdam ? ” 


316 


AN OLD MAID’S LOVE. 


Then Jakob told him why Steenevest was empty too. The 
lamp burned low. They sat opposite each other j Arnout 
with the untouched meal beside him, Jakob with his eyes 
fixed intently on the bowl of his long Gouda pipe. Their 
hearts were very near to each other — and very far apart. 

“Do you know,” said Jakob presently, “that your aunt 
Barssehus is dead ? ” 

“ No, indeed, ! ” answered Amout, starting up. “ How should 
I know ? When did she die ? ” 

“ She had a fit of apoplexy last Monday, and died almost 
immediately. She has left very little money behind her, for 
everything goes back to her husband’s family. But what she 
could dispose of, she has bequeathed to Miss Adelaida Vonk 
for the maintenance of her dog Bijou. She made a new will, 
it appears, on the day after Tante Suze had started for Paids. 
She was very angry with us all for not having effected your 
return.” 

“ Well,” answered Amout, “ I can’t help it. I am sure I 
never wanted her money. And, besides, she was no aunt of 
mine.” 

Poor Tante Suze ! She also was no aunt of his. And yet, 
if her sister had withheld from her the little money she had to 
bestow, it was through his fault, and his alone. 

“We wiU go to Amsterdam to-morrow,” said te Bakel, amid 
the weary silence. “We wiU go together and find Tante 
Suze.” 

“ Yes,” answered Amout dreamily. “ I must speak to Tante 
Suze. We will go’ to Amsterdam.” 

He was miserable, utterly miserable and worn out and con- 
fused. He looked across at Jakob te Bakel’s long pipe and 
stern face. He shivered. The room seemed cold to him. 
And the lamp bmmed strangely low. 


ARNOUT UNDERSTANDS. 


317 


CHAPTER XLIII. 

' ARNOUT UNDERSTANDS. 

Mejuffrouw Varelkamp sat in her neat little house- 
keeper’s room. She had obtained a situation immediately} 
indeed, with her references and accomphshments, a number 
of applications had come to her as soon as her purpose became 
known. She had decided to fix her choice on an elderly 
maiden lady, hke herself, an invalid, to whom she could be 
housekeeper, nurse, and companion combined. And she was 
not unhappy among her new surroundings, as long as she had 
plenty to do } her occupations took her away from her less 
agreeable thoughts. She knew that she was not sorry it 
should be so, even while she sought to return to them. And, 
moreover, the object for which she strove was about to be 
attained. She dreaded success, and, probably, when it was 
achieved, she would regret it. But as long as she was work- 
ing for it, she rejoiced in the word. 

This morning’s post had brought her a couple of letters. 
They were spread out before her } she sat gazing at them even 
now. The one was wiitten in a graceful feminine hand, and 
its contents ran as follows : 

“ Mademoiselle, 

“ I send you back your boy. Do not question 
longer why I retained him, or why I send liim back. He is 
willing to return } let that suffice you. And I am not unwill- 
ing he should go. I can feel with you, for I also have learnt 
something of the bitterness of loss. I return to my husband, 
and you will hardly, I presume, insist, under these circum- 
stances, on my marriage with Arnout, for I cannot suppose 
that your unbending morality will approve of two husbands 
any more than of half a one. Two ! It would be too droll ! 
And M, le Procureur General woidd lock me uj) for bigamy. 


318 


AN OLD ilAID’S LOVE. 


and then I should have none. Adieu, mademoiselle ; forgive 
me the wrong I have done you. Be sure that we suffer for 
our evil actions ; and, sometimes, in those austere Protestant 
prayers of yours, which seem made for human sin, but not 
for human folly, remember the name of 

“Dorine de Mongelas.” 

The second consignment coidd scarcely be called a letter. 
It was a parcel which had come by letter-post. On being 
opened, it had revealed, under a thick paper covering, a 
bundle of one thousand franc notes, and of bills of exchange 
from one commercial fiouse to another, which had been done 
up in a lump and flung into a letter-box, like so many worth- 
less pages of gossip. The sum entrusted to the honesty of 
the post in this happy-go-lucky manner amounted, when every- 
thing was counted up, to exactly one hundred and thirty-five 
thousand francs. There was no letter of explanation of any 
kind, not even a name, or a pair of initials. The postmark 
on the wrapper was “ Paris the direction was written in an 
unknown hand. The money lay in a heap on the table — and 
that was aU. 

Mejuffrouw Varelkamp sat looking at it, and counting it 
over, but she was not thinking of the money — she was think- 
ing of the letter. She wore mourning for her sister, but it 
was not that only which made her face look even paler and 
thinner than usual. 

The letter was a great trouble to her. It had come upon 
her imexpectedly. It was heavy with a revelation, from which 
her soul shrank back, because of its pain and its reproach. 

This woman, whom she had attempted to kill — this woman 
wrote to her, and wrote thus. In the very midst of all Su- 
zanna’s scheming to bind Amout to her, she resigned him ; 
she resigned him because she knew that it was wrong to 
retain him — resigned him in the sacrifice of her love for his 
sake. Poor Suzanna, looking deep down into the letter, read 
her story there, and read it right. The money lay there also, 
but what availed the money? In the moment when she 
touched success, Dorine de Mongelas had flung it from her 
because she would not have it at the price. 


ARNOUT UNDERSTANDS. 


319 


This truth Suzanna faced as she was accustomed to face 
truths, unpalatable or otherwise, and try and live them down. 
She idealized her rival undoubtedly, as it was her nature to 
do, when once she veered round ; and many circumstances of 
the case were as yet entirely unknown to her. But in the 
main idea, that the woman whom she had striven to injm-e so 
terribly was treating her with gi*eat generosity, she was cer- 
tainly right. 

“ She is a better woman than I,” she said ; “ she, the vdcked 
creature, is a better woman than I. She lived more tndy, 
more straightly than I. I love him, and I have been working 
hard to mould his lot as I thought best. And whether the 
means be right or wrong, what has it mattered to me as long 
as I could have my own way, and do as I thought best I Yes, 
that is what it has always been. As I thought best. Even 
mm-der, if I deemed that it would attain what I thought best. 
And if I thought my best was better, then the world was mad, 
and God was wrong. And what has my wisdom led to from 
the beginning ? I have built up with all my labor the very 
things I desired to destroy. It was I who sent the lad forth 
from his home in the very moment when I was yearning to 
retain him. And it was I who was welding the chain which 
must fetter him for ever, at the moment when this woman 
was loosening it to let him free. Oh, the unwisdom of our 
wisdom when it begins to doubt of conscience, when it tells us 
and reasons out to us that evil is not evil because it leads to 
good ! Oh, the wretchedness of going wrong ! ” 

She sat for a long time undisturbed in the silence, alone 
with her thoughts. Then she got up from the table and went 
to a little cupboard in the comer, and took up a Bible which 
lay there. 

She opened it at the fifty-first Psalm, and she read the 
Psalm through solemnly, without flinching. 

During aU these troubled weeks she had cahnly continued 
her reading, but she had shrunk, with a nameless feeling of 
terror, from that agonized cry of the repentant King of Israel. 
It was the Psalm which Amout had whistled on the summer 
evening when he wandered down the lane, and came upon the 
carriage upset in the middle of the road. She shrank from 


320 


AN OLD MAID'S LOVE. 


it ; from the tune, from the words, from the awful, overwhelm- 
ing, “ Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God ! ” And now, 
with its meaning sinking deep into her spirit, with all the 
reminiscences of that fateful evening returning upon her, she 
read it through sorrowfully, calmly, from end to end. She 
was sitting with the open page before her, when Dorothy van 
Donselaar came in. 

“ Do I disturb you, Tante Suze ? ” said Dorothy. 

“ No, child, no ; and I have great news for you to-day. Can 
you bear good news as well as evil! Madame de Mongelas 
has left Amout, and I doubt not but now he wiU soon return 
home.” 

Dorothy smiled upon Tante Suze, but it was a very subdued 
smile. And a question remained in her eyes, which the' old 
lady hastened to answer. “ She has gone back to her hus- 
band,” she said. “ Poor thing ! She has gone back to her 
husband.” 

“ I am very glad for your sake, Tante Suze,” said Dorothy 
gravely, “ that Amout is coming home. Very glad. I looked 
in to tell you I have found a good situation for Betje, in the 
house of a minister who preaches damnation and makes the 
best of this world while it lasts.” 

“ That is good news also,” said Juffrouw Varelkamp, “ for it 
has been very kind of you to take so much trouble about 
Betje. She will be in such a congenial atmosphere there, that 
she will refuse to return to me if ever I should have need of 
her again.” She did not press Dorothy. There are things 
best said by being left unspoken. 

But presently she pushed the book towards her, pointing to 
the open page. “ Child,” she said, “ it is an awful thing to 
live through the experience which makes such words possible, 
but — oh, child, it is a blessed thing, when such words can 
follow on such a deed.” 

“It is Amout’s psalm,” said Dorothy softly. And then, 
in the silence, the two women kissed. 

“ There is a gentleman to see you, juffrouw,” said a maidserv- 
ant, breaking in upon them. “ He won’t give his name, but 
he says that you know him, and he is coming down-stairs.” 


ARNOUT UNDERSTANDS. 


321 


. 


Suzanna and Dorothy looked at each other. They knew 
who the stranger was. 

And before any explanation could be olfered, Amout walked 
into the room, and, pushing out the servant, closed the door. 

Then he stood at the far end of the room, unwilling to 
advance, hesitating what to do or what to say, troubled even 
more by the unexpected sight of Dorothy van Donselaai-, stand- 
ing against the window by the side of his aunt. 

Suzanna came forward a few paces, and then checked her- 
self. 

Don’t come near me,” he cried. “ I am not worthy. It is 
so strange, and things aU turn out as they should not, and we 
cannot put them right. But I am not worthy. I shall never 
be worthy again, neither of you, nor of her ! ” 

“ Oh, Amout ! ” burst forth Suzanna ; “ oh, the wi-etched- 
ness,.the wretchedness of going wrong ! ” 

He hesitated one moment, with his eyes fixed upon her face. 

The wretchedness,” she went on vehemently, “ of thinking, 
despite all our conscience teUs us, that right can be wrong and 
wrong be right, because om* reason, or om* passion, deems it 
so ! Oh, the misery of living false ! ” 

And then, suddenly, Arnout understood. 

He sank down on his knees, and stretched forth both his 
arms towards her, out into the void, into the futm*e, nay, into 
the very present of love. 

“ I am not worthy,” he cried, “ nor of you, nor of her, nor, 
least of all — of God’s mercy. Back into the right path. Into 
the right path. By Thy strength, O Christ ! ” 


THE END. 





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are not mere puppets, but original, breathing, and finely contrasted 
creations. — Chicago Tribune. 

Miss Woolson is one of the few novelists of the day who know 
how to make conversation, how to individualize the speakers, how 
to exclude rabid realism without falling into literary formality. — 
N. Y. Ti'ihune. 

Constance Fenimore Woolson may easily become the novelist 
laureate. — Boston Olobe. 

Miss Woolson has a graceful fancy, a ready wit, a polished style, 
and conspicuous dramatic power; while her skill in the develop- 
ment of a story is very remarkable. — London Life. 

Miss Woolson never once follows the beaten track of the orthodox 
novelist, but strikes a new and richly loaded vein which, so far, is 
all her own ; and thus we feel, on reading one of her works, a fresh 
sensation, and we put down the book with a sigh to think our pleas- 
ant task of reading it is finished. The author’s lines must have 
fallen to her in very pleasant places ; or she has, perhaps, within 
herself the wealth of womanly love and tenderness she pours so 
freely into all she writes. Such books as hers do much to elevate 
the moral tone of the day — a quality sadly wanting in novels of the 
time. — Whitehall B&view, London. 


Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 

t3^Any qfthe above workn will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part 0 / the 
United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price. 


By CAPT. CHARLES KING 


CAMPAIGNING WITH CROOK, AND STORIES OF 
ARMY LIFE. Post 8vo, Cloth, $1 25. 

A WAR-TIME WOOING. Illustrated by R. F. Zogbaum. 
pp. iv., 196. Post 8 VO, Cloth, $1 00. 

BETWEEN THE LINES. A Story of the War. Illustrated 
by Gilbert Gaul. ^ pp. iv., 312. Post 8vo, Cloth, $1 25. 

In all of Captain King’s stories the author holds to lofty ideals of man- 
hood and womanhood, and inculcates the lessons of honor, generosity, 
courage, and self-control. — Literary World, Boston. 

The vivacity and charm which signally distinguish Captain King’s 
pen. ... He occupies a position in American literature entirely his own. 
. . . His is the literature of honest sentiment, pure and tender. — N. Y. Press. 

A romance by Captain King is always a pleasure, because he has so 
complete a mastery of the subjects with which he deals. . . . Captain 
King has few rivals in his domain. . . . The general tone of Captain King’s 
stories is highly commendable. The heroes are simple, frank, and sol- 
dierly ; the heroines are dignified and maidenly in the most unconvention- 
al situations. — Epoch, N. Y. 

All Captain King’s stories are full of spirit and with the true ring about 
them. — Philadelphia Item. 

Captain King’s stories of army life are so brilliant and intense, they 
have such a ring of true experience, and his characters are so lifelike and 
vivid that the announcement of a new one is always received with pleas- 
ure. — New Haven Palladium. 

Captain King is a delightful story-teller. — Washington Post. 

In the delineation of war scenes Captain King’s style is crisp and vig. 
orous, inspiring in the breast of the reader a thrill of genuine patriotic fer- 
vor. — Boston Commonwealth. 

Captain King is almost without a rival in the field he has chosen. . . . 
His style is at once vigorous and sentimental in the best sense of that 
word, so that his novels are pleasing to young men as well as young 
women. — Pittsburgh Bulletin. 

It is good to think that there is at least one man who believes that all 
the spirit of romance and chivalry has not yet died out of the world, and 
that there are as brave and honest hearts to-day as there were in the 
days of knights and paladins. — Philadelphia Record. 


Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 

A ny of the above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the 
United States, Ca7>ada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price. 


SEVEN DREAMERS. 


A Collection of Seven Stories. By Annie Trumbull Slos- 
SON. pp. 286. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25. 


A charming collection of character sketches and stories — humorous, 
pathetic, and romantic — of New England country life. The volume in- 
cludes “How Faith Came and Went,” “Botany Bay,” “Aunt Randy,” 
“ Fishin’ Jimmy,” “ Butterneggs,” “ Deacon Pheby’s Selfish Natur’,” and 
“ A Speakin’ Ghost.” 

They are of the best sort of “ dialect ” stories, full of humor and quaint 
conceits. Gathered in a volume, with a frontispiece which is a wonderful 
character sketch, they make one of the best contributions to the light 
literature of this season. — Observer, N. Y. 

Mrs. Slosson has in these stories explored an entirely new field in fiction, 
and her work has the merit of unquestionable individuality of method as 
well as novelty of theme. — Boston Beacon. 

These stories are redolent of the New England coast — salty, pathetic, 
and grim for the most part, and true to the New England nature, so ret- 
icent, self-contained, and undemonstrative. ... In their peculiar field, 
nothing better has ever been done. — Newark Advertiser. 

Stories told with much skill, tenderness, and kindliness, so much so 
that the reader is drawn powerfully towards the poor subjects of them, 
and soon learns to join the author in looking behind their peculiarities 
and recognizing special spiritual gifts in them. — N. Y. Tribune. 

These stories are of such originality, abounding in deep pathos and 
tenderness, that one finds himself in perfect accord with the writer as he 
reads of the hallucinations of these heroes. — Watchman, Boston. 

Mrs. Slosson’s sympathetic appreciation, her faithful reproduction of the 
vernacular, and, above all, her tender humor, which in its highest form is 
near akin to pathos, are admirable, and appeal, by the force of her simple, 
direct style, to the heart and head of the reader.— C'Atca^'o Tribune. 

Dreamers of a singular kind, they affect us like the inhabitants of 
allegories — a walk of literary art in which we have had no master since 
the pen dropped from the faint and feeble fingers of Hawthorne, and 
which seems native to Mrs. Slosson. — N. Y. Mail and Express. 

The sweetness, the spiciness, the aromatic taste of the forest has crept 
into these tales. — Philadelphia Ledger. 

These tales evince a rare study and knowledge of human nature, and 
the possession of a greater than Prospero’s world to evoke the pert and 
nimble spirit of mirth, or the tears brought by a genuine power of pathos. 
— Hartford Times. 


Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 

The above work sent by jmail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United 
States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price. 


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